Driving to Mt. Rainier...or should I say...Mt "Sun"ier

Day 5 - Tuesday, August 16

Seattle, WA to Mt. Rainier, WA

Tuesday morning we actually woke up super early and went to the Fisherman's Terminal and to Pike Place Market since we arrived a little bit later in the afternoon on Monday.  We first swung by Fisherman's Terminal in hopes to see the fisherman unloading their latest catch, but unfortunately we were given some bad information and when we arrived, the information desk people told us that the boats won't be back for a few more months which kinda threw a monkey wrench into our morning plans.  Once we felt like we had had enough of staring at docks covered in bird poop, we drove on over to Pike Place Market to watch the famous and fun events at Pike Place Fish Market.  It was a great time to go as no one was really there yet and all the vendors were setting up all the fish, food, and flowers.  We even got a chance to walk into the first Starbucks...generally the line is out the door and the wait is ridiculous!  Sadly, we were a little limited on time since we had to go back to our hotel, pack up, pick up Vida, and then check out so we could get a move on to Mt. Rainier.

 All the docks where the boats usually are...some of the boats are on the show "Deadliest Catch"

 Really pretty and really cheap flowers

 Huge salmon

 Fresh fruits and veggies

 Throwing fish for a touchdown!

Giant Piggy Bank

haha!

Video of the Pike Place Fish Market guys throwing fish!

After we left Seattle, we headed for Mt. Rainier which was about a 2 hour drive.  We definitely lucked out and found a great ski resort called Crystal Mountain right outside of Mt. Rainier National Park which allowed dogs, and get this, gave us half off for being military!!  Not to mention that all of our meals were included... I told the lady I will definitely be going back there if they practically pay me to stay;)  I must say, I've been to these cute little isolated ski resorts in the winter when they are covered with snow and buzzing with people, but I would be lying if I didn't say that these same cute, little, ski resorts are kind of creepy in the summer.  There was hardly anybody there!  I bet there was a total of 40 cars taking up the parking lot for 3 different hotels and not to mention 6 or 7 huge parking lots which are slammed in the winter!  Needless to say, it was really pretty and super nice to have everything so quiet!  The food was great, service was wonderful, and the scenery was unreal!!  

Crystal Mountain opens up their gondola daily for people to ride to the top of their property for what they claim to be the best view of Mt. Rainier.  The funny thing was that from the bottom of the resort, you would have no idea that this huge volcanic mountain is right on the other side, but when you get to the top, Mt. Rainier practically pokes your eyes out!  It was breathtakingly beautiful and hardly anyone was there!!!  The weather was great, hence the Mt. "Sun"ier title!  Brian, myself, and Vida (yes they let her ride the gondola up!) all rode to the top and just sat there in awe for about an hour...Vida was actually more preoccupied by the curious little chipmunks running around than anything else.  I swear she would have ran off the cliff trying to catch one...thank God she was on a leash.  From the top, we could see Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Baker...we literally felt like we were on top of the world!  If it was this beautiful from outside the National Park, we couldn't wait to see what it was going to look like from inside the park.

View driving to Mt. Rainier

I thought the highway signs were funny...

 On the gondola on the way up.

 View from the top...BAM!!

Mt. Adams

These little chipmunk squirrelly things kept taunting Vida...they would walk right up to her and sniff her and she would just sit there shaking, not moving a muscle.

 Brian taking in the scenery, Vida thinking about how she's going to catch the rodents.

 We had to ask 3 different people to take this picture before they finally got the whole mountain in it...seriously people!  Learn how to take a good picture!!  This one turned out pretty awesome though!

On the edge...

 I forgot to mention that we decided we would walk down the mountain instead of ride the gondola... we descended 3000 feet over a 3 mile hike which took us about an hour and a half.  It was super steep and my legs were killing me at the end!

Vida playing in the left over snow:)

The Emerald City

Day 4 - Monday, August 15

Port Angeles, WA to Seattle, WA

Monday morning we woke up without any real plans set in stone...we wanted to go to Olympic National Park but then we would be back tracking which we didn't really want to do, and we had Vida which put us in a serious predicament when it came to checking out of the hotel on time since we couldn't bring her to the park with us.  Eventually, while eating breakfast at a great bagel shop, we came to the conclusion that we should just make our way over to Seattle and we should stop along the way if we saw anything cool that we needed to take pictures of or check out.  That being said, hotel reservations were the next thing on the list...which required about 30 minutes of calling around trying to find the best deal.  

Now we had two options when it came to getting to Seattle...one was to drive all the way down the Olympic Peninsula and then back up to Seattle on the other side, or we could take the ferry across Puget Sound and save time and gas money.  Of course, like I said earlier, this whole trip was kinda on a whim...which meant I really didn't know if they would allow dogs on the ferry until we practically got there which was stressful to say the least.  Once we finally got on the ferry, it only took about 30 minutes to get from Bainbridge Island to Seattle and the scenery was beautiful the entire time!!

Once we got off the ferry, I had the fabulous idea to try to find a dog park so that Vida could get out and play for a little bit...let's just say that the GPS thought it knew where the dog park was and it send us on a wild goose chase!  Long story short, we could see the dog park...but Vida never got to play in it because we couldn't find the parking lot!  I felt so bad for her but since I'm such a great parent, when we got to the hotel, I ran her around the hotel a few times like a loony person:)  After I felt like she was tired enough to sleep for a while, Brian and I left to spend the afternoon/evening in Seattle.

Our first stop was Pike's Market which is a huge arts/crafts/farmer's/fish market in downtown Seattle right on the water.  As we were driving over, I noticed this big white cloud right over the city's skyline...a few minutes later I caught another glimpse of this "cloud" and realized that it wasn't a cloud at all but it was Mount Rainier!!  It seriously towered over the entire city and was beautiful!  Whoever said Seattle is a rainy city was a liar!  We had beautiful weather and were able to sit out a cute little pub for happy hour, and then make our way over to a fun sushi restaurant.  The day seemed to fly by, but we had a great time!!!

Driving onto the Bainbridge Ferry

View from the ferry

Seattle Space Needle

Seattle Skyline

Pike Place Market

They kind of look alike...

Happy hour..

Happy hour...

Not so happy hour... a bird pooped on me!!!  Thank goodness it didn't make it into my drink!

The first Starbucks is in Pike Place Market

Mt. Rainier in the background

The flower pots were unreal all over the Pacific Northwest

From One "Port" to the other "Port"

Day 3 - Sunday, August 14
Portland, OR to Port Angeles, WA


I don't think that I've really mentioned this before, but...the road trip is a little bit out of the ordinary for me. Usually, I have everything planned out before hand so I know exactly where we are going, when we're going to get there, how long it will take us to drive, yada yada yada.  Well this time, planning went out the window and we're just kinda flying by the seat of our pants and it's driving me CRAZY!  I hate not really knowing where I'm going to stay that night especially since we are limited in our options as not everywhere takes dogs.  Either way, I tried to get over my Type A personality and just go with it...as hard as that was.  


On Sunday morning, we woke up and decided that we would take an urban hike through Portland.  Apparently, there are some really nice trails that give you good views of the city and of Mt. Hood.  Unfortunately, we were not lucky enough to find these so called urban trails, as our GPS was a little bit on the fritz and because of some road work.  Needless to say, we drove around parts of the city for about an hour before we decided to call it quits and head out.  Oh, where were you going, you ask?  We didn't really know...


So far, the first half hour in the car each day has consisted of me draining the battery on Brian's iphone to frantically figure out where we should go.  After we figure that out, I'm stuck the the daunting task of finding a hotel in that city that accepts dogs...which so far has not been too hard.  As you guessed, once we left Portland, the next half hour or so I was occupied planning the rest of our day.  Since I was deemed the master planner, I decided that we were in it for the long haul, and we were going to to to Port Angeles...a city at the very tip of the Olympic Peninsula across the water from Canada...and instead of taking the boring interstate, I decided that we needed to take the scenic, ocean view highway.  You see, when I was little, my family took a trip up to Washington state and I absolutely loved the pacific coast...which meant that Brian obviously had to experience what I did...no matter how long it made the car trip.  


Honestly, it was kind of a long drive...but it was beautiful!  The Olympic Peninsula is gorgeous and we definitely want to go back and spend some time there!  It's home to the only rainforest in the continental U.S.  It's not a tropical rainforest, but a temperate rainforest which means that the foliage and animals are completely different than what you think of in a typical rainforest.  Unfortunately, we did not actually go into the rainforest since Vida was with us, but we were able to visit the Olympic National Park beaches, which were awesome!!  

Being patriotic:)

She loves sticking her head out the window!

Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park

Me and my fur child taking a walk on the beach...

There were tons of starfish stuck to the rocks!  It was so neat!

Playing tug-of-war

We would see these signs every so many miles where loggers had harvested forests...it tells you when it was harvested, when the forest was replanted, and when it will be harvested again.

This is for all you Twilight fans...

Crescent Lake

The entire area is plagued by Twilight pictures...

Sunset in Port Angeles