Tacoma, Washington

Mile 2951

It's tough finding an internet connection in the mountains! Sorry, we haven't been able to post anything since Portland. We are in Tacoma now, staying at a friend's house. Helen has been great! Not only gave us a place to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed for a change, but also did our laundry! Now we are at Bertolino's Cafe near her house, as usual, drinking cofee. Here's what we've done since Portland on Wednesday. By the way, Portland is a really nice town:


This part of the trip was dominated by mountains. We headed east so that we could circle around Mt. Hood. At mile 2567 we stopped near the base of the mountain where Hapa took a drink from the ice cold White River. Then we headed straight for the Washinton border. We crossed the Columbia River, which is the border between the two states, and drove west along it for a few miles, then turned north up route 30. We stopped for the night at mile 2662 at the Swift Reservoir and camped out.



On Thursday morning, we continued north to the east side of Mt. St. Helen's. I wasn't aware of this, but it is currently in the state of eruption. You can actually see steam rising from the top every few minutes. Evidence of the 1980 eruption is plainly apparent everywhere. Although ground level vegetation has regrown, toppled trees numbering in the millions are strewn about for miles. It's very hard to imagine a force that powerful, so when you actually see the devastating result, it's mind boggling. We continued northbound and turned east at Route 12 to Mt. Ranier National Park. You have to have pretty good timing when you come here, because Mt. Ranier is so big at 14,411 feet that it makes it's own weather. For a large part of the day, when we circled it's south side, it's peak was obsured by clouds. As you can see from the picture, the left side is partially hidden. But when we went all the way back around to the east side, we were able to get great views. We were able to get up to 6400 feet at Sunrise Visitor Center to get the best view. This is the closest you can get by car.

By Thursday night, we had made it to Tacoma. We will spend at least a day in the area, visiting friends and exploring the Seattle area. Then it's on to Canada, eh!