King of the Mountains

We didn't do a whole lot on Saturday. We spent the day getting settled in at the campground. We went grocery shopping and made some phone calls to make reservations for plans in the Seattle area. We are finding that it is difficult for us to trek into downtown Seattle in our truck, since most of the downtown parking is by way of garages. The problem with that is the height of the garages is not usually tall enough to accommodate our truck. We're having to make alternate plans. We spent hours at McDonald's using their wifi and trying to figure out some of these alternate plans. 

There is a sign on the door to McDonald's that says "We will not tolerate violence or verbal abuse towards our staff and reserve the right not to serve customers behaving in this manner." We had seen on the news recently where people were barging into fast food places and creating havoc, stealing, vandalizing, etc. Apparently there is a lot of crime in this area and it seems that the mayor of Seattle has been criticized for not dealing with it. The manager of McDonald's is not making that mistake!

If you look at a map you will see that there is a lot of water in the Seattle area, and there are a lot of islands. There is a ferry service, but apparently it is hard to book a reservation on the ferry, because they book up fast. We want to visit the San Juan Islands, but not sure how to make that happen with the ferry situation. Another thing for us to figure out. Stay tuned.

I do have to mention one thing that happened on Saturday. As we were leaving the campground, heading to McDonald's, Joe said to me "Look, Kay, there it is." I had my head down looking at my GPS, and didn't know what he was referring to, so I looked up and WOW!!! I couldn't believe my eyes! "It" was Mt. Rainier. This was the first time I set eyes on Mt. Rainier, and all I can say is WOW!!! We were in Seattle about 35 or 40 years ago, and we never saw Mt. Rainier, because it was always hazy. Today the weather was very clear and the mountain came into view. 

It is hard to describe Mt. Rainier, because there is nothing like it in the whole world. It is stupendous, well that doesn't even come close to describing it. It is a monstrosity of a mountain, just hovering in the background. Mt. Rainier is in the Cascade Range and even though it is surrounded by the tall and impressive mountains of the Cascade Range, it nevertheless dwarfs them. It just sits there appearing to be so close, but yet is a good 50 miles away. It's like it's just perched on the doorstep. 

Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier is truly the King of Mountains, sitting there in all of its glory. It is a stratovolcano which rises to such an impressive height above its surroundings. It doesn't even look natural. The mountain is 14,400 feet tall, of which more than 13,000 feet is above the surrounding hills. The volcano that is Mt. Rainier is not extinct, but merely dormant, which means that it could and probably will erupt again some day. The last eruption was 500 years ago. It is carefully monitored since this is such a hugely populated area. I only have one request of this majestic mountain: please don't blow within the next 18 days!

Saturday evening we attended Mass at All Saints Church in Puyallup. The inside of the church was beautiful. True to its name, it had on display a number of saints icons hanging on both sides of the church. The icons were truly beautiful and had the saints name as well as their picture displayed. We liked the priest a lot and enjoyed his sermon. 

All Saints Church

All Saints Church, notice the icons on the wall

All Saints Icons

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 6, 2024 at 6:11 PM

    I can’t believe the height of the parking garage does not accommodate for Joe’s truck! I guess rather than letting the air out of the tires so you can fit under the garage it’s best to just keep riding. Just kidding! Can’t wait to hear how you figured it out .
    Nothing like a good sermon in a beautiful church At the end of a day!
    Ellen Hutchinson

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 6, 2024 at 6:13 PM

    Mount Rainier is the king of mountains !!
    Ellen

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 27, 2024 at 1:23 PM

    “On a clear day, you can see forever “ - someone said that I think 🤔
    Cathy

    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