Posts Tagged “mt st helens”

We enjoyed some truly amazing views of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens on our way down to Portland:

We also ran into this random lovely spot on our way to look at Bigfoot statues:

And we took a brief detour up to Mt. Rainier National Park. After all, we have just a couple of months left on our national parks pass, so we’re trying to make the most of it!

We had perfect weather every single day of our trip except this day. Our park day was really, really cloudy and drizzly.  So, this made for a different experience than what we had expected, but it was still gorgeous and lovely in its own special way! We loved the moss hanging off these trees:

And we saw some other fun and interesting plants:

Here’s a photo from Narada Falls:

Because of some roadwork, we were “stuck” at Christine Falls for a while.

They were so amazing that we could have stayed all day, but we forged ahead to the visitor’s center at Paradise. We saw some incredible wildflowers and clouds in the Paradise area:

Because we were so short on time, we elected not to hike to the viewpoint to see one of the glaciers. We thought we probably wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway through the cloud. But we did see some glacier pieces around!

And a trip to a national park is never complete until you see some wildlife.

We drove from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, and enjoyed many an exciting attraction along the way.

For example, here in the town of Maltby, Washington, we found an espresso stand shaped like a coffee cup:

The Colonel Sanders weathervane out front is just a bonus. Speaking of chicken, we paid a visit to the World’s Largest Egg in Winlock, Washington — formerly a major egg producer, apparently.

By the way, when we were taking photos of the egg, the locals looked at us like we were straight c-r-a-z-y. As if no one comes to Winlock just to check out the World’s Largest Egg. Come on!

We also went to Chehalis, Washington, to see Yard Birds:

I actually don’t really know why these guys are here. They seem to be part of a large shopping complex involving a tire store and a tattoo parlor? I’m not sure. There wasn’t anyone around, so it was mostly just us, these birds (or this single bird with a mutant second bird coming out of his side..?), and our rental car in a huge parking lot.

Moving on, we saw these metal cow sculptures outside of Olympia, Washington:

In addition, the Pacific Northwest is really, really into sasquatches:

They even leave out food for them:

We also saw a film location from Harry and the Hendersons:

While Bigfoot didn’t choose to reveal himself to us directly, we know he’s out there.

We also went to Kid Valley, Washington, to see the buried A-frame, a house that was partially completed when Mt. St. Helens decided it had had enough already and might as well blow up. The A-frame was covered in ash:

I actually don’t know much about the Mt. St. Helens eruption. I was only a couple of months old when it happened, and my parents never mentioned it to me that I can recall. I’m assuming they were preoccupied at that point with not sleeping and changing diapers and whatnot and possibly didn’t even know about it (just kidding!). But Brian is old enough to remember it being a big deal, so being in this area was especially exciting for him!