The Next Chapter in the Book . . .: Chapter 450

HAPPY

for Kyanne and Kyle and for me next week!

Meanwhile, back on the Olympic Peninsula...Guess why it's called a "rainforest"? A quick trip to Wal-Marche' for a couple of FroggTogg ponchos and we are back in the game. With a trailer as small as ours, you either have to figure out how to get along outside or sit inside on the bed so we suited up and headed out to do a bit of Geocaching.

Just a real pretty, real rain soaked, real forest.

Bob spotted another cache by it's "unnatural" looking stick covering.

Super Cacher sporting her newly purchased frogg togg cape.

When we left for our trip, we really didn't think beyond the fact that it was nice here at home. It got a bit chilly one evening in the trailer so we had to use our Mylar emergency blanket on the bed. It the dead of the night in the middle of the forest, this blanket crackled like a thundering herd of elephants just learning how to run!

One of the other downfalls of the teardrop is you find yourself sweeping your bed with a little broom on a regular basis...

This is the valley below Mt. St. Helen's where the debris flood ran at 200 mph and over 600 degrees! Now there are peaceful herds of elk grazing on the valley floor.

Coldwater Creek became Coldwater Lake when debris blocked the flow of water and created a new lake.

The hillside to the left is part of Mt. St. Helens Monument and hasn't been replanted. The trees are filling in, but certainly not as quickly as the parts the timber companies hand-replanted.

No, I didn't post a blurry photo! These genetically-modified noble fir trees are created to have fewer branches, therefore fewer knots in the wood. Their branches are pretty much spaced the same distances, and the trees are all the same ages so when you look at these post-eruption forests, the hillsides appear to be blurry.

I found this poster in a restroom, just in case you forgot what "before" and "after" the eruption looked like.

More caching in some random forest.

A peek at Mt. Rainier's peak from one of our hikes.

We spent over 1,000 miles on the road while out and about and we were rarely more than a couple of hours from home at any given time.

Mt. Rainier was out the day we stopped by. This is the road up to Paradise.

And from a trail from the Paradise Lodge we hiked up this close to the summit of Mt. Rainier. We would have gone the rest of the way to the top, but I was wearing sandals...

The top of Mt. Rainier with an alpine meadow in the foreground. It was an amazingly clear day, too bad we didn't have it when we looked at Mt. St. Helens this close to the summit from the Johnston Ridge viewpoint.

And, here's the trifecta of mountain photography: A mountain, an alpine meadow, and a waterfall. There's some award-winning pixels right there!

My camera must be failing, the bottom half of this photo is messed up. I'll have to make sure this doesn't happen again!

As you can see, this simple photo only took about 50 instructions for Bob to get where I wanted him to be in this photo!

The finished product!

These mountains were so sharp against the sky it looked like they were computer-generated. I did enjoy having some nice fresh, crisp air to breathe again.

In case you missed seeing the top of Mt. Rainier, Bob is pointing to it with his walking stick. Ahem, excuse me. Trekking pole.

We hiked .1 miles to the Wonderland Trail, and hiked about 25 feet on it. Now we can say we've done the Wonderland Trail. We just won't talk about the other 91 miles 5,255 feet we did not hike. We also walked the Continental Divide in about the same fashion but we had kids with us back then and couldn't do that entire hike then either.

The view from our campsite opposite of Mt. Rainier.

To go along with this idyllic setting, here is a video of the entertainment I get to enjoy each time we break camp: Bob folding the changing tent.

💖

We stopped at the Longmire Historic District Visitor Center. This is where the first tourists camped in 1883 as they came to visit Mt. Rainier. John Muir stayed at the Longmire's lodge when he made his first ascent of Rainier in 1888. These are a couple of the unlucky previous inhabitants of this area.

This was the original park headquarters before being converted into about 20 different things over the years.

We rolled into our driveway and after the frenzy of unloading the trailer and car, in true Book fashion, Bob felt the need to wash the car and trailer...

Apparently the car had some spots on it from the acid rain or ash or dirt, or whatever and it had to be clay-barred, waxed, and polished before he felt the world was right again.

The next day we headed to the "Center of the Known Universe", a.k.a. Fremont,to go to a place that folks travel to from all over the world to see. Geocaching Headquarters. Seriously, people make special trips from all corners of the world to this Mecca! While we were there, there was a guy from Ottowa, Ontario, Canada just totally geeking out over the place. I guess folks will stay there in this 25' x 25' room for hours watching the monitors and reading the materials. I guess if you've traveled for day to see this place, you gotta stay and make it worthwhile!

We went to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) which holds local history of Seattle and how it came to be Seattle. How did we arrive at the Mercer Mess from just a couple of cabins in the woods?

JoAnn used to ride the larger of these boats, the Virginia 5, to Bluebird camp. I don't know how Bob recognized it immediately. Probably because he was about to unload his sister for a week and it was a memorable event to him! The small boat is one of the original Foss Maritime boats

Back at home, we were able to run over to Silverdale for Reagan's second ballet performance. She takes following instructions very seriously and tries very hard. For video of Reagan's dancing click here and here.

While we were in Silverdale, we ran to REI to look for something. Since there was a cache behind the building, we had to go check it out. The cache requires to get on the bike and pedal