Mount Rainier and Seattle (July 2019)

Wednesday July 3rd

Seattle had always been a place where I wanted to visit, and July 4th weekend combined with a little Southwest Airlines companion pass made this work even more.  We arrived and for the first time we used Turo for our rental car.  Turo is like the Airbnb of cars, you rent a car from a person and not a company.  Seattle has a plethora of Qdoba restaurants, Houston has lost all of theirs and being my favorite burrito shop a stop was in order before we made our way over to Mount Rainier.

I had picked a ski resort that overlooks Mount Rainer National Park from the west, so that's where we headed.  On the way to the resort it was cloudy as to be expected in the Seattle area.  Even flying in it was cloudy but when you are above the clouds it always beautiful.

Mount Rainier from the plane

We arrived at Crystal Mountain ski resort and the clouds were starting to part but not quite clear when we pulled up.  The ski resort has all the normal seasonal ski lifts that were not in operation and a larger ski gondola that goes all the way to the top.  We paid the gondola fee and rode to the top, through the low clouds and emerged at the restaurant at the top of the mountain.  Views were middling at first, so I took few pics and we hiked along a trail at the top of the mountain.

Rebe and the Gondolas

Ride up, into the clouds

Trail along the ridge of the ski mountain

Rainier doing its dance behind the clouds

The mountain later fully came out and we relaxed in some chairs that were on the back patio of the restaurant. We just sat and enjoyed the view for an hour, just watching the clouds slowly drift by the magnificent mountain.

Rainier and the surrounds

Mount Rainier National Park is a lot bigger than I had previously imagined and from the ski resort to the area we were staying for the night was a minimum 1.5 hours away.  We made our way back across the park through the twists and turns taking in the park even under the deep cloud cover.  Dinner was at the Wildberry Cafe (a combination of traditional Himalayan and American mountain food), small local place and then off to sleep in our tiny cabin.

Our humble cabin

Thursday July 4th 

The morning started with some leftovers from dinner the night before because 1) don't waste food and 2) not a lot of breakfast options near the mountain.  We could have driven to town and found something reasonable but seemed like waste.

We were up early on a drive to the park so we could have a chat with the rangers at Longmire Station.  We discussed hikes and other potential ideas for the day and since we were able to view the mountain on the previous day we thought it would be cool to see other parts of the park that might be less traveled or less 'mountainous.'  The decision was to take what we thought was a 'moderate' hike up to Comet Falls.  After completing the hike we later learned it was indeed 'strenuous' and our legs could feel it.

Van Trump Creek

More of the creek

Bridge across the creek to get to Comet Falls

The hike took us along Van Trump Creek and after 2 hours of mostly uphill walking we got to the main event, Comet Falls. But just before Comet Falls there was a smaller water fall too.

Waterfall before Comet Falls

Comet Falls

Now that our legs were warm it and now being midday we drove further into the park to visit the Paradise section of the park.  On the way to Paradise we had a quick stop at Narada Falls, which we had passed the day before under some deep fog but we didn't stop.

Narada Falls

The Paradise area is home to the Henry Jackson Visitor Center and Ranger Station.  This is the main visitor center that is open all year, even in the winter, and also receives 53 feet of snow a year.  Presidents visited here when it opened long ago back when it wasn't just a simple car ride to the station, and President Truman played the piano, that is still in the visitors center, during his visit (and didn't get to see the mountain).  We had an amazing lunch (ELK BURGER) at the visitor center and then stumbled into a historic talk with a ranger who had worked there for more than 30 years.

Visitor Center

Interior of Visitor Center

After leaving the visitors center we made our way across the park passing views of the mountain as the clouds were clearing and the mountain was out.

Rainier seen from Stevens Canyon

Found a small canyon and a short trail that we explored before making our way over to the Grove of the Patriarchs.  The Grove of the Patriarchs is an old growth forest area of the park, and there are plenty of large trees in the pacific northwest but these trees are the granddaddies of all the others and their size really showed it.  They weren't sequoia large but still simply amazing.  This was the beginning of where my study of trees began for the trip.

Pic of Canyon right of the main road

Rainier

Rainier

Grove of the Patriarchs

Grove of the Patriarchs

We then continued around the park over to the Sunrise section of the park with plans for dinner.  Sunrise is the highest point in Mount Rainier National Park accessible by car and at 6400 feet it gives stunning view of the mountain on clear days.  The area also has meadows of wildflowers that bloom in the summer and it's a less visited area of the park.  It was so quiet and serene up at Sunrise, I wish we could have spent more time in the area and explored some of the trails in the area especially since it was a good clear day.

Since we had been on the go all day, we had gotten to Sunrise after 7pm, and all the stores and shops in this section of the park had closed for the evening.  Even the restaurant, well I shouldn't call it a restaurant as it was more like a gift shop that might have something to snack on.  We were now 2 hours from our cabin thus two hours from food and more than likely all those places would be closed by the time we arrived.  We spoke to some locals who said there was some food in the opposite direction of our cabin but that was still 50 mins away, thus 3 hours away from our cabin.  Did I mention this was 4th of July so they could have been closed all together.  Instead of just risking a trip to a random restaurant (no cell service in the park) we just suffered on the Cliff Bars we had packed and ate the popcorn that our host had left in the cabin for us.

Friday July 5th

Today was moving day, it was sad to leave the mountain as I think the park has a lot more to offer than we saw.  All these National Parks really deserve more time than we can dedicate to them, but with so much to see in Seattle we had to move on. We got packed and hopped down the road to a small restaurant at the Copper Inn.  Good homestyle greasy breakfast, good and heavy.

First stop in Seattle was to be Alki Beach, which is in the coastal haven in West Seattle that provides the some of the best views of Seattle.  You really get the classic skyline views of the city and more so you really get a sense of the hilly nature of the area to the north.

I have a bigger pano, but google is being weird about ultra wide images

Next stop in Seattle was a duck boat tour, probably the most dangerous way to see any city, better yet anything.  Duck boats are basically buses that can drive through a city and then hit the dock and boat itself across a lake or river.  The tour visits all the big spots such as Historic District (Pioneer Square), the Waterfront, the Space Needle (Seattle Center), Freemont and of course a ride across Lake Union.

Downtown from Lake Union

We got off the Duck at around 1:30pm and it was now time for some lunch.  We wanted to find a hip place in the South Lake Union area and we first stopped at re:public Bar and Restaurant but at the time the kitchen was closed so we moved on to Serious Pie & Biscuit.  If we had known about this place we probably would have skipped breakfast.  I mean, pizza, biscuits and beer... how could you go wrong.

Beer List

PIZZA!

Now it was time to head to our 'room.'  We've stayed in a few AirBnB's over the past few years, and most have been good, some not the best but still they had created good stories and memories.  But this would be the first time where the owner of the place we were staying would also be there. So we got to the house and the owner had given us the code to let ourselves in.  Yep, definitely a weird experience of walking into a complete stranger's house and settling in.  Of course this ain't our house, so we head up to our bedroom on the second floor with it's own bathroom to get settled in.  After getting settled we couldn't just sit in this nice bedroom, we had to get out to see more of the neighborhood.  We put on our walking shoes and walked from the house located in Freemont over to Molly Moon's in Wallingford for a bite of ice cream.  With our ice cream we continued our trek up to Woodland Park for a leisurely stroll to a busy park with walkers and joggers and even bunnies that just didn't mind you walking near them.

BUNNIES

From the park we headed back to Wallingford to stop at Bottleworks, yep just what it sounds like.  A beer store with wall to wall bottles and a few taps to enjoy.  Enjoy them in house, or take them to go.  They didn't mind, no card to hold a tab just laid back beer drinking.

On the way back to the house, it was late and a few places were open and a place down the street, Paseo Freemont, from our room was still open.  Literally they were cleaning up the kitchen when we walked in, we could see the disdain on their faces when we walked in interrupting their cleaning session.  Anyways, they served us the greasiest greatest pork sandwich we had had in a good long while.

We finished dinner in the room and then our host finally arrived home for the night.  We chatted for a short while before calling it a night as we had a early start in the morning.

Saturday July 6th

An 830 bike tour was the plan for the morning and it was great taking us all along "the nation's best bike trail."  The trail was mostly flat but 17 miles of pedaling, none of the ebike magic this time but it took us to quite a few spots around Seattle such as along the waterfront where we started, up to Ballard Locks and the Botanical Garden (we also stopped at a chocolate shop), back down along the Lake Washington Ship Canal, Lake Union Park, Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) and finishing up back at the waterfront.

Us at Ballard Locks

Us at the Space Needle

For lunch we had a Seattle style hot dog which consists of creme cheese and peppers.  You've heard of NY dogs and Chicago style dogs, and this was there version.  Good but definitely not life changing.  We had a little time to kill before our afternoon tour, so we stopped at a beer shop (Seattle Beer Co.) to check out the local fare.  Meanwhile Rebe played the new Harry Potter game.

Next was our food tour of the famous Pikes Place Market. We had Doughnuts (Daily Dozen Doughnut Company), Greek Yogurt (Ellenos Real Greek Yogurt), Clam Chowder (Pike Place Chowder), cheese and curds (Beecher's Handmade Cheese), crab cakes (Etta's), truffle salt (Truffle Queen), Filipino food (Oriental Mart where the owner doesn't have a menu and cooks what she wants), and it was all amazing and to top it off we got to skip all the lines.  Each of the places we went to were all pretty crowded, but our tour had preplanned our visit so we walked right up and got a decent size sampling of the food.  And our tour guide Justin was amazing with his stories of all the places, the food and the history of the Pikes Place Market.  He even told us the secret of the "first" Starbucks, which is located in the market but it's technically the first Starbucks.

The famous sign... and the crowds

The infamous gum wall... which was last cleaned Sept 2018, yep less than a year ago

The fish chucking guys

From the market we Uber'd to area near the University of Washington to first have bubble tea, it's Rebe's new fad (mine too).  We then walked over to check out the campus where I luckily got a second class in treeology. They have an interactive map of trees on campus where a lot of trees on the campus were marked with numbers and many more that were not labeled in person but were able to be identified on the website.  The trees were not just local trees, some were really unique like the Monkey Puzzle tree or even more famous Giant Sequoia trees.  Some were young (relative) saplings but there was one very large Sequoia on campus.

Monkey Puzzle Tree

Pic from UofW campus

More from the campus

We walked around checking out the beautiful campus buildings and landscaping admiring the would be views of Mount Rainier.  Touring the campus had us ready for dinner and we had gotten a recommendation from the worker at the ice cream shop the day before of a place called Thai Tom which was close to the university.  We walked there noticed the line outside and thought this place must be good so we ordered to go because the place was tiny inside.  Funny story, the restaurant had one lady who was catering to the to-go orders outside and the menu was posted in the front window of the restaurant.  Of course while we were waiting for her to come back for our order we had made our decision.  Rebecca goes to order, and the nice lady was like "we're out of that" and Rebecca goes for her second choice, "we're out of that type of noodle" so then the frustration strikes and we're asking "well what do you have?"  Anyways 40 mins later for food and 8 blocks later we sat down at a brewery to eat and partake of more local beer (Floating Bridge Brewing)...had to sit down and eat somewhere.

We then Uber'd back to our room to get the car for some late night last minute sightseeing.  We drove down to Kerry Park for night views of the Seattle skyline. The park was closed but the number of locals or tourists said otherwise.

Seattle from Kerry Park

Then we attempted to find the famous Freemont Troll and since it's under a bridge google couldn't get us there directly. Either way we sorted it out and got a pic before calling it a night.

The under bridge troll

Sunday July 7th

Sunday was going home day but before heading home we thought we venture up to Everett, Washington to experience the Boeing plant tour.  This is where Boeing actually builds the 737, 747, 757, 767, 777 and 787.  We were allowed into the factory to see the assembly line and it's hard to really understand the scale of these planes as the building that houses the assembly lines are some of the largest on Earth.  No pictures were allowed in the plant, they even had personal lockers for everyone on the tour to store your personal items.

Me next to a 747 tail

737 Max's on hold due to the 'issue'

If you're going to build planes, you have to have an airport for customers to test them and fly them to they where they operate

We had left our luggage at the room, stopped by to grab it on the way back into downtown Seattle for lunch at a food truck festival before heading to the the airport and flying home.

Food Truck Festival