A trip to Mt. Rainier

This post will be largely just a bunch of boring pictures we took on the way, on, and returning from a day trip to Mt. Rainier National Park.  As the crow flies, the summit is only 28 miles from our RV park .... but it took nearly 2 hours to arrive at the highest point (5,000') by road.  From there, Paradise, the summit was still over 9,000' above us.

In the village of Elbe, WA we stopped for a quick burger.  Across the street a vendor selling fresh Rainier Cherries - I've eaten so many cherries out here I'm .... well... never mind.

And across the highway - The Hobo Inn.  Very clever.

Quite often Becky and I take "side trips" and we're never quite sure what we'll run across.

Well... I don't know where the pictures of our side trip went so I'll just go on to the rather unusual sign we saw as we exited back onto the highway.  

The main entrance was really inviting - it was HOT here that day, damn near 80 degrees!

Fortunately I really don't care to add a whole lot of boring details but a couple that might be of interest is that there are 12 glaciers flowing down from the summit.  In all, there are some 30 glaciers on the mountain.  Here's a few that have played themselves out somewhere back in history.

Typical "silty water" runoff from a glacier up hill from here

And here's a bunch of photos we took on our ride up the hill....

This was truly a pause that refreshed. 

There's a volcano in the background - you can see it if you kinda look through the trees but man, look at that beautiful truck!  Good ole Cummins Diesel is still running like a Swiss clock.  Pretty ain't it?

Ahhh haaaa... the following is one of the missing ones from our side trip, a beautiful 100 acre lake with just a few very lucky land owners homes on it..  What a view.

A few close ups of wild growing flowers along the way home

The devil made me do it!  This picture (well, most of it) was taken from our RV.  The mountain is real.  The colors in the picture are as they were.  The mist in the mid-ground is real as are the trees.  But that MOON must be confessed to be what it is... an EDITED-IN effect!  Looks good enough to howl at doesn't it!  Sorry, I couldn't resist!

The End