Seattle & Rainier National Park

Back to the grind after a vacation that was too short! As I mentioned earlier, I took my family out for vacation to Seattle, where we spent most of our days eating and seeing the sights. We were very lucky to have 3 solid days of warm and sunny weather to hike and do the touristy things downtown. I love this city. I love the ocean, the mountains, and the forest around it. It's so hard to get away from the city in the Midwest. There's so much sprawl and really not much nature aside from the lake!

Lovely views of the Sound here.

 View of downtown from the Sound. Much smaller than Chicago. And less architecture to marvel at. But still nice in its own right.

 On the third day, we drove out East to Rainier National Park. The drive there was so beautiful. We drove through a lot of forest. I've never driven through an evergreen forest before. Mostly around Chicago and the outer suburbs, we have deciduous forests. 

 Very hilly! 

 Mountain road here - very winding and scary, especially if you look down the barriers and just see a 100 foot drop. 

 We hiked up what I believe is the Nisqually glacier side, in an area called Paradise. We were hoping to see the wildflowers bloom, but unfortunately they came way ahead of schedule this year, and died down too quickly! Above is a view of the smaller mountains around Rainier.

 And then finally, Mt. Rainier itself. A good view of how glaciated it is. I believe the one in the photo is the Nisqually glacier! I'd love to hike this mountain again one day - definitely further up! Unfortunately, my parents are older these days and couldn't make it as far as my brother and I - but still pretty far! I think this was the final viewpoint that we reached, before the descent.