Washington Trip Part 2: Mount Rainier National Park

On Day 3 we drove from North Cascades to Mount Rainier National Park! We arrived to the park and drove to the Visitor Center which is in the Paradise area of the park, and we were instantly overwhelmed with the amount of people and the crowds. It was intense! We were not loving the chaos of it all... It was super intense. So, we didn't spend much time there... We did wait in the line to talk to the Park Rangers, and we were able to ask about a few hikes we wanted to do.  Unfortunately, a few of the hikes we were interested in were still under about 15 feet of snow, so they weren't possible... But we got some ideas for a few other things to do, and we found out which areas were open and which areas were closed due to snow.

Mount Rainier! Usually there's a bunch of cool trails you can take around here (this is by the Visitor Center), but there was still WAY too much snow.  So, people had their skis and were walking up that little hill there and then skiing down. 

Mount Rainier!

We drove further into the park to the Ohanapecosh area, and we stopped to hike Box Canyon Trail, which includes a bridge over a canyon that is 180 feet deep, and at the bottom of the canyon is a river!

This is looking over the edge of the bridge, down into the canyon!

Part of the trail was blocked off due to a big ol' tree that fell on the trail... 

After that trail, we went to the Grove of the Patriarchs. This was a super cool hike where you see some huge trees that are over 1000 years old!  At the beginning of the hike you  have to cross this long and narrow suspension bridge, and the bridge can only handle one person at a time... so there's a line of people on both sides and everyone has to work together and take turns so that only one person is on the bridge at a time. When it was my turn, it was pretty cool!  I was trying to walk smoothly so that the bridge wouldn't move a ton, but my goodness it sure liked to move all over the place no matter what.  After I got to the other side, someone from that side took their turn, and then it was McGee's turn!  I got some good pictures of him on the suspension bridge. The trees at the Grove of the Patriarchs were amaaaaazing, and it was a really nice area!  It was pretty crowded, but still cool.

There's Kevin just starting to cross on the other side!  And you can kinda see the line of people waiting too. 

Here he's about halfway!! 

Almost there! 

He made it! And here's part of the line of people waiting their turns to cross back to the other side. 

And here's one of the enormous 1000+ year old trees!

These two are growing together! 

After we were done with that, we decided to drive to a few viewpoints, and then finally head out of the park and get to our little cabin that we found on AirBnB!  We were SO ready for a shower, because we had been hiking for 3 days without a shower. Well.. this is when we ran into Bump 1 during our trip (remember I mentioned in the previous post that we had 2 bumps in an otherwise perfect trip?).  Well, this cabin was SMALL... and we were totally ready for small, but this cabin was so small that you couldn't stand up in the shower... It was an A-frame cabin, and the bathroom was on the side, so literally the showerhead was at about chest level and you could NOT stand up or you'd hit your head.  So, I showered first... and the water pressure was super bad so just barely over a trickle of water came out, and you had to bend your knees and do a squat the entire time or you'd hit your head on the slanted ceiling, plus if you wanted your hair rinsed you had to squat even lower.  And the hot water lasted about 2 minutes, and after that it was icy cold... So... not amazing.  And... another thing was the bedroom situation.  The bedroom was in the loft area of the cabin... but there were no stairs.  To get up to the bedroom you had to climb up this SUPER rickety wobbly ladder that felt like it was going to break, and then when you got to the top of the ladder you had to immediately jump to the bed because there was just a wall area in front of the ladder (and the bed took up the whole floor... ), and you couldn't stand up in the loft either. So... it was just really uncomfortable and kinda scary.  We were way more comfortable in our tiny 2-person tent when we were camping.

The cabin. We thought it was adorable!  We were so hopeful... 

We didn't love sleeping there that night, and the house didn't even feel safe (the neighborhood didn't seem great, and the downstairs window was broken).  So... we were supposed to stay there two nights, but on the morning of Day 4 I kinda jokingly said, "Wanna just head to Olympic National Park?", and then McGee responded "I kinda do...", and then we looked at each other and decided to rearrange our trip.  We decided to head back into Mount Rainier National Park for the first part of the day and see a few more things there (hopefully before it got super crowded again), and then drive to Olympic National Park a day earlier than we'd planned. We just decided that this was our VACATION, and there was no way we should spend another night in that cabin if we didn't feel comfortable or even safe. Honestly, looking back on it, I am SO beyond glad that we decided to leave.  The rest of our trip was amazing, and we turned that one Bump into more time at Olympic National Park, and we looooooved our time there.  Oh, and one SUPER cool thing that happened during our Day 4 morning at Mount Rainier was that we saw a marmot!!  It was just wandering around in the snow, and I was SO excited to see one!!  I'd really been hoping to see one because I heard there are a lot of them in Mount Rainier National Park!!  It was adorable.  I didn't get a picture of it (I was too busy freaking out!), but here is a picture of a marmot:

They're pretty big!  Like I'd say maybe around the size of a cat (not a kitten). 

And here are a few more pictures from the morning of Day 4!

The Visitor Center wasn't open yet (it was morning!), so the area wasn't crowded at all yet! Much better... 

That says Elevation 14,410 feet! 

Mount Rainier!!  It's so beautiful!! 

It was a lovely morning and I'm glad we spent part of that day in Mount Rainier National Park, and then I'm glad that we drove to Olympic National Park that day instead of waiting for the following day!

Washington Trip Part 1: North Cascades National Park

Our trip was last week, and MY GOODNESS has this week back at work been tough!  We're still feeling pretty tired and jet-lagged, but WOW did we have an amazing vacation!!  There were two "bumps" (I will call them "Bump 1" and "Bump 2") during the trip, but everything else was super amazing, fun, and relaxing.

Day 1 of our trip was last Saturday (June 3rd, which was our 2nd Anniversary!), and we woke up bright and early and caught a flight to Seattle! We arrived in Seattle around 11am, and got our rental car (it went SO smoothly!) and then stopped by a Target to get food/supplies that we weren't able to bring with us. Then, we drove to North Cascades National Park!  North Cascades is soooo beautiful, and we loved it right away. We'd reserved our campsite at Colonial Creek Campground ahead of time, and it was right on Diablo Lake! Our campsite was great (#80), but next time we go back we definitely want the one right next to it (#83) because it was much more secluded. We set up our campsite, and then just spent the rest of the evening relaxing at our campsite! We set up our chairs on this area looking out at the water, and we exchanged our Anniversary cards!  The "traditional" gift for the 2nd anniversary is cotton, so this year we both decided that we would buy a mattress as our "cotton" gift to each other because we REALLY needed a new mattress! We actually bought it a few months ago, and it is SUPER comfortable and our backs are already feeling much better! Our old mattress was SUPER old and crappy.

Our chairs, looking out at Diablo Lake! We were able to pack these chairs in our suitcase and bring them with us, because they fold down super tiny!  And they're SO comfortable too. 

The view from our campsite. 

Kevin is setting up our tent!  I think I was grabbing sleeping bags from the car... And you can see Lake Diablo beyond the picnic table! 

Day 2 of our trip was spent exploring North Cascades National Park!  We went on a few really great hikes, and we were loving how quiet and peaceful it was everywhere!  North Cascades is one of the least visited National Parks, so there were no crowds anywhere, and we absolutely loved it!

After we finished our first hike, we drove just outside of the park to Cascadian Farm!  They make organic granola bars, cereals, jams, etc... They're in most grocery stores everywhere. But they have a little farm stand where they sell some of their products and they also sell HOMEMADE ICE CREAM!! It was so beyond delicious.  I had coffee ice cream and McGee had chocolate ice cream. 

After visiting Cascadian Farm, we went to these waterfalls that are in town, also right outside the park.  There were about a zillion stairs to climb, but it was worth it! 

 After that waterfall, we went back in the park! Here are a bunch of pictures from our hikes, and pictures of Diablo Lake!!

That was it for North Cascades!  We left early on Day 3 to head to Mount Rainier National Park!

Washington

Kevin and I are going to be heading to Washington (state) for about a week!  We are SO excited!  We're going to see three National Parks, plus Seattle. It's kinda for Kevin's birthday, kinda for our 2nd Anniversary, and kinda just because we want to go on a trip to Washington!  Haha :)

The first stop on our trip will be North Cascades National Park.  It's one of the least visited National Parks in the U.S., and that sounds pretty perfect to us! We'll be camping for two nights there, and we have some good hikes planned.

This is Diablo Lake!  And it really is that color. Crazy, huh? 

And there is pretty much year-round snow for parts of North Cascades, so I think that will be the coldest part of our trip! 

After two nights of camping and hiking at North Cascades National Park, we're going to head to Mount Rainier National Park!  And we'll be staying in a CUTE little cabin just outside of the park there, so that'll be nice after the first few days of camping. We'll have two nights there as well, and Mount Rainier has some really amazing hikes too!  I'm excited for all of them, but one of them is through an area called Grove of the Patriarchs which has the oldest and largest Red Cedar trees in the mountain range and it sounds REALLY cool. 

Mt. Rainier!

Grove of the Patriarchs! 

After two nights in a cabin at Mt. Rainier National Park, we'll be heading to Olympic National Park for two nights of camping!! I'm SO excited to camp here - the campground that we hope to stay at is called Kalaloch (we can't reserve ahead of time), and it's right on the ocean. Olympic National Park is really interesting because it has both intense gorgeous forest areas, and also really amazing coastline and tidepools. So, we definitely want to spend part of our time hiking through the crazy forest areas, but then we also want to spend a lot of time wandering around the beachy areas and the tidepools.

Near Kalaloch Campground at Olympic National Park 

Also Olympic National Park!  Crazy, huh? 

Look at these trees!  Amazing. 

And after the two nights of camping at Olympic National Park, we will head over to Seattle and spend one night there! We'll have basically a day and a half to see Seattle though, because we have one night there and then we have a red-eye flight on that 2nd day.  We're soooo excited for this trip!! Washington is such a beautiful state.  

Seattle!  That's the Space Needle on the left, and that's Mt. Rainier in the distance on the right!  Pretty cool, huh? :)   

Over a month!

Wow, sorry guys!  It's been over a month since my last post!  Things have just been CRAZY busy!  Everything has been good (except work...), but I just haven't had any down-time to post anything.  So, I'll do a SUPER fast recap of the last month and include some pictures, and then I'll do another post with some upcoming plans we're excited about!

At the end of April my friend Lindsey came to visit me from Virginia, so we had a ton of fun hanging out all weekend!! The weather was crazy warm when she was here, and one day we went to Longwood Gardens to walk around and enjoy all of the beautiful flowers!  After we were tired from the gardens, we went to the nearby Chaddsford Winery where they were having a Wine and Bacon Fest!  Yes, wine AND bacon... It was glorious. It was such a fun weekend of hanging out!

Lindsey!!! It was so great to see her. 

The first weekend in May was the Broad Street Run!  It's a 10 mile run, and this was McGee's THIRD time running it!  McGee and his sisters have run it together the last 3 years, and this year was the first year with PERFECT weather!!  The first year it was SO hot (which is not good for the runners...), and last year it was raining like CRAZY (not good for anyone), and this year was kinda overcast and slightly chilly (perfect!!).

This is not a picture of Kevin or his sisters... I was too busy cheering to get a good picture of them!

During the middle of May my parents came to visit for about a week!!  It was SO great, and it flew by way too quickly.  We did some fun touristy things (some of them I hadn't done yet!), and we also had some nice relaxing time too. We saw the Jersey Shore, the Philadelphia Zoo, the Art Museum, Eastern State Penitentiary (built in 1829 and closed in 1971... it's a really cool building), and Valley Forge (our house is only like 5 minutes from Valley Forge!).  It was such a great visit!

This was at the zoo!  I forget what this bird was, but it had a little stuffed animal that it LOVED, and it kept carrying it around like it was showing it to us. So cute! 

Four monkeys at the zoo that had their tails intertwined!  It was so cute. 

Eastern State Penitentiary! It was SUCH a cool tour.  

Valley Forge! 

Valley Forge again! 

Last Wednesday my friend Adriana and her boyfriend Adam came to visit Philly!  They were doing an East Coast trip, and I'm so glad they were in Philly for a night so we got to see them! We met up with them at a bar (Monk's Cafe) in town and had dinner, and then we wandered over to another bar (Good Dog) and had some fun hanging out! It was so great to see them, and that evening went by way too quickly!!

Me and Adriana! 

Whenever I walk by City Hall I have to take a picture!  It's too pretty. 

And this weekend (Memorial Day weekend) we went to a Phillies game! Kevin's mom organized a game with the whole family (his cousin even came down from NYC!) to celebrate Kevin's upcoming birthday, and it was so much fun! We met up at the game, and then afterwards we all went over to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Here's Kevin walking in front of the huge Philly Phanatic! 

Kevin's Mom arranged for someone from the stadium to come over and lead our section in singing "Happy Birthday" to Kevin, and she was sprinkling confetti on him the whole time. Oh and he got that hat and card from them too since it was his birthday celebration! AND his name was on the big scoreboard, but I didn't get a pic of that... 

Kevin's mom, aunt, and sisters! 

Whew, I think that's all of the big stuff that I can think of over the last month!!  I'll do another post to tell you about some big plans coming up!