Saturday, February 28th - Our official first day of the road trip

We watched the sunrise from Heidi's 3rd floor apartment, which is in the loveliest Victorian home!


And it was toast, tea, and tangerines for breakfast.
We stopped at the Thriftway on our drive out of Tacoma. Along the waterfront, we spotted Mt. Rainier.














We both still look at it in disbelief.


On our way to Mt. Rainier... we spotted this pick-up with a ball-hitch. See the Mama ball-hitch? Do you see the Baby ball-hitch, too?


We arrived at Mt. Rainier National Park, only to discover that all the campgrounds were closed. Silly us, we should have known that this place shuts down in the winter! But we discovered that backcountry camping was allowed, so we acquired backcountry permits at the ranger station and headed for the Paradise Inn. (Note: Paradise was the starting point on our Mt. Rainier summit, 5400 feet.)


Surprisingly, we discovered the Jackson Visitors Center was demolished in October 2008. It is now just a clear plot of land, currently covered with 15 feet of snow. The new visistors center at Paradise is a fancy-smancy one.


Not expecting to have to backpack to a sleeping spot, we prepared our large backpacks, and we spent about an hour rearranging everything in the car. For those folks who want to hear about the potential drama we'll experience on this year-long road trip... here is the first occurence.


Arranging and rearranging, shuffling and shifting, packing and unpacking the car to find the right gear was like playing one of those maze games - you know which ones I'm talking about... The one where there is space for 12 squares, but there are only 11 squares, and you have to shuffle the tiles while they are all still connected to make a picture or put the numbers in order... You know what I'm talking about?

Okay, so packing our backpacks was just like that game. We weren't mad with each other, thankfully, but incredibly frustrated with the situation. We were shifting modes of transportation - from expecting to live out of the car for the night - to having to take certain items from the car needed for the night and putting them in our backpacks. Quite the adventure in itself! It's a process we look forward to perfecting.


Mt. Rainier is quite different in the winter - no flowers or pretty smells - just tons and tons of snow - at least 10 feet high! Today, the snow was extra powdery, and the clouds were heavy with rain. There were loads of cross-country skiers and kiddos sledding and tubing. We hiked for about 2/3 of a mile, sinking into the snow about 3 feet with each step. (McCloud - we definitely got our cardio in for the day!)

Unfortunately, we didn't have snow shoes, and the visitor's center only rents them for half-a-day, so we simply didn't bother renting them. We decided it wasn't worth trenching through the snow any longer for a further campsite, so we backtracked 1/4 mile to build camp. We were thankful the rain held off while we set-up the tent and cooked dinner.


Surrounding campers dug snow caves - and we found an unoccupied 2-person cave "across the street" from our site. It was really well carved and had sturdy ice walls. It was warm, but I'd be a little freaked-out sleeping in there!



Our camp was set high on a ridge, less chance of receiving snow from an avalanche, but windy as heck! The night was pretty calm with a few heavy gusts, but calming with the pitter-patter of rain-snow combo hitting our tent.


For a before-bed snack, we sipped hot chocolate and munched on biscotti courtesy of Tom (our T2C buddy). Yum!















It was nice to be in the park again, even if we couldn't see the mountain at all - we knew it was still there.

Now, we had anticipated spending 2 nights at Mt. Rainier, but decided to head down to Ilwaco instead. That's the beauty of our adventure. If we want to move on, we move on... if we want to stay for a while, we'll stay for a while.


Just outside of Mt. Rainier National Park, we stopped at Dan Klennert's Recycled Spirits of Iron sculpture park. I've been wanting to stop here since our first visit to Mt. Rainier. Very cool place!



We are now in Ilwaco, WA at Cape Disappointment State Park. For those who don't know, it's one of our favorite spots. It's been raining really hard - feels like Louisiana rain - so we've decided to stay in a yurt for the next 4 nights at the park. This morning, the sun came out and the rain clouds parted, so with the temporary break in the weather we decided to bike 8.6 miles into Long Beach at a coffee shop with free wireless - which is where we are now. We'll stay here for a few hours - writing a blog entry or two and transferring photos, and Richie will do some actual work, then we'll bike back.

It's quite charming out here, and Highway 1 (on the Peninsula) is nice and flat, which is great for us to bike on! I really like it out here, especially in the off-season. There are great little beach towns and the people are eccentric.


We've already lost track of the days... Tomorrow is Tuesday, right?

Our next stop: Portland, OR