An Accidental View of Mt. Rainier

On Sunday, we felt rested enough to take a drive to see some of the sights in the area. We drove to Bremerton and then to Bainbridge Island. We found our way to Rockaway Beach Park that really tried to remain hidden from view. We passed it a couple of times before noticing a barely visible trail that led down to a rocky beach with views of Seattle. Since we were on an island across Puget Sound from Seattle, the view of Seattle across the water was nice, although still a little hazy at this early hour.

View of Seattle


Rockaway Beach Park

Rockaway Beach Park

Rockaway Beach Park

I enjoyed this sign: Whose house are we visiting? I say it's God's house!

After leaving Bainbridge Island, we drove north to Port Townsend. Along the way and again at Port Townsend, we saw more views across more waterways. So much water in the Seattle area. 

From Port Townsend, we headed back south along the eastern edge of the Olympic Peninsula with the Olympic Mountains to the west. We had more nice views of the surrounding mountains.

We made one last stop for the day. We drove through the city of Olympia and drove by the state capitol building. Now we've seen all 50 state capitols! The grounds of the state capitol in Olympia are really nice.
Olympia State Capitol Building

State Capitol Grounds

On the drive from Olympia back to our campground, we planned to travel mostly along Interstate 5. Then I noticed on the GPS that there was an accident with traffic tied up for miles. So we took an exit to take an alternate route. Soon I noticed on the GPS that traffic on this alternate route was backed up, another accident. So we turned off onto some back roads to take a second alternate. Well, guess what! Another accident on that road! It took us a really long time to get back to the campground due to the traffic and accidents encountered along the way. But we did find a silver lining. The route we ended up taking afforded us some unbelievable views of Mt. Rainier, this time from a different angle. This view showed us the side with a lot of the glaciers, and needless to say, it was very impressive.
Mt. Rainier, notice the glaciers


Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2024 at 6:28 PM

    Talk about a beautiful view! Congrats on all 50 state capitals! There has to be a certain feeling of accomplishment !! I know that took some effort . Thanks for sharing it with us !
    Ellen Hebert Hutchinson

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Grotto

Image
 On Sunday, we drove from Dubuque, Iowa to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with only one sight-seeing stop along the way. Sunday afternoon, we stopped at The Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa.       This is an amazing grotto which actually consists of many different grottos, the purpose of which is to preserve in stone the story of the fall of mankind and his redemption in Christ. The Grotto was started in 1912 by a priest, and when the priest died 42 years later, others continued the work. The Grotto is made of stones, rocks, and minerals from all over the country and the world. We first visited the museum which showed some of these specimens and where they were from. After visiting the museum, we walked around viewing the different grottos. The Grotto of the Ten Commandments contained a statue of Moses holding the tablet that the Ten Commandments were written on. This grotto contained a few stalactites. The Paradise Lost Grotto depicted the Garden of Eden...
Read more

Nothing But Fog

Image
On Thursday Joe, Denise, and I went into Mt. Rainier National Park. It is about an hour's drive from our campground.  Entrance to Mt. Rainier National Park We saw a lot of beautiful scenery on the way there and throughout the park.  Our first stop was at the Paradise Visitors' Center. Denise and I took a short hike (up a steep path) to Myrtle Falls. Myrtle Falls In the visitors' center, we learned that the weather is unpredictable. Mt. Rainier is so humongous that it actually creates its on weather. The clouds and fog move inland from the Pacific Ocean and they slam into the mountain. Extremes in the weather are the rule here in the Mt. Rainier micro climate. You can incur raging winds, sudden downpours, and in the winter, blazing snow.  Because Mt. Rainier is a volcano, there is a hot layer of magma underneath the mountain. The magma creates steam and it is not unusual to see some of this steam escaping at the summit, even during the winter when the mountain is snow cove...
Read more

Far North Montana

Image
On Thursday, we left Kalispell and started heading east toward home. On our way out, we saw the mountains in the morning light, and they formed a beautiful silhouette against the morning sky. We started off by repeating our drive along the edge of Glacier National Park. Although we had seen the park the day before, the mountains were so beautiful that we couldn't help but take more pictures. It is just simply a beautiful place. You just feel like you want to take a picture to capture a little bit of it and take it home with you. As we were leaving the town of Kalispell, we noticed a plethora of signs about Jesus. There were signs in front yards, on sides of buildings, in front of churches, in fields, and there was a huge horseshoe shaped collection of billboards, all with religious messages. We traveled west to east across Montana on Highway 2. This highway is in the very far north of Montana. This sign served as a reminder of how far north we were. Turn left for Canada We passed t...
Read more