The Pacific Northwest- Washington

  From Oregon to Washington and our campground, Paradise, in Silver Creek Washington. We took a short detour and stopped by the Mount St. Helens Visitors Center.

This visitors center was about five miles from the interstate but nowhere close to the mountain. We saw a short movie and looked at the displays and were on our way. 

We got to our campground and had a hard time finding a space. The sites were narrow and the roads steep. We finally came across a well camouflaged site that the neighbors were trying to save for their friends. 

The best part of this campground was the road coming in. The view of Mt. Rainier and the lake below were beautiful.

The campground was packed for the weekend blueberry festival in the neighboring town of Mossyrock. I am always up for a festival so we checked it out on Saturday. 

Once there, we caught the car show first.

A classic '57 Chevy

A rare '57 Ford Fairlane Skyliner. A retractable hardtop convertible

We then walked around the festival grounds which were expansive but hardly any people and really not much to see or do.

Fairly lame as far as fairs go.

  The next day we drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park. First we stopped at a Mt. St. Helens viewpoint along the way.

The drive to Rainier was about an hour and the wait to get through the entrance gate was about an hour and-a-half.

Once inside the views were spectacular.

The road winds up and around the mountain to the visitor's center. Along the way are numerous viewpoints.

Of course waterfalls are present in the park and this one you can get up close by hiking down a short path.

The visitors area is named Paradise and it is an appropriate name.

There are several switchback paths that get farther up the top. 

Absolutely spectacular. Glaciers that are the source of rivers and streams that have flowed for millenia.

We made one more stop in Washington at Little Diamond Lake in Newport, close to the Idaho border. This was nothing more than a stopping off point on our way to Montana and a one time change. From here we made a stop at Camping World to use my $25 gift certificate before it expired and a stop at a wine tasting in Spokane Valley.

So that is it for the Pacific Northwest. We didn't get to all the areas we originally wanted to, but we got a nice taste of the area. Next is Big Sky Country. This post gets us fairly well caught up and Mt. Rainier will have been our best viewing conditions thus far in the trip.