Day 31 (September 20, 2006) - Mt. Rainier N.P.

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I am telling you! This state is haunted for us! It's my birthday today and we are visiting Mt. Rainier, although the morning clouds don't look very promising. The road to the park from Yakima goes along the Tieton river and it's quite winding. The river itself is actually pretty, with some mild whitewater for miles and miles on end. There is also a loopy road around Rimrock lake, which looks very bikable. Along the way, there are many campgrounds and some outfitters offering raft tours. We arrive at the southern entrance to the park and the ranger welcomes us with some bad news about the weather. Undeterred we enter just the same but we have to give up pretty quickly at the idea of staying. The fog is so thick and low, we can barely see the dividing line on the street. It will stay this way at least until Friday. It's not lost though, since we will have to make our way south just the same later on to go to Portland. So we will try again. We decide that, with weather like this we can probably handle a visit to a city much better than to a park, so we drive out the northern entrance and head straight for Seattle. We settle in a state campground south of the city, in Puget Sound, with no electricity of water hookup, but we can manage for one night. It's wet, cold, humid and rainy. We are pretty far from Seattle itself and it's already later afternoon. And somehow we haven't celebrated my birthday yet! We dress up with rainjackets, hop on the Vespa and go explore the surroundings. We dine in a Mexican restaurant in Des Moines, WA and go to bed early. Tomorrow morning we are taking the bus into Seattle.

Welcome to Mt. Rainier.

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