All play and no work

**NOTE! If you read this straight from the email, the videos will not play! You want to see the videos! Click on the link to my blog site and find this post. https://laurasplace.blog/

Amy and I are on our way to Alaska for a small ship tour from Juneau to Sitka with Lindblad/National Geographic. More on that soon! 👏🏼

Meanwhile, we are in Seattle for a few days.

My past work-life brought me to Seattle and surrounding areas for more than 20 years. All the while, Mt. Rainier — all 14,410 feet of her — beckoned through windshields of rental cars and windows of conference rooms. Kind of like this (screenshot):

High time to get there!

A Springtime Adventure

May is early spring in the high country of the Pacific Northwest. With temps in the mid-50’s and a north wind blowing, distant views of the peak as we drove revealed swirling trails of snow & ice blowing off the peak. Unimaginable cold! How do mountaineers do what they do?

By noon when we were inside the park*, we were permitted only teasing glimpses of the mountaintop. *Why so late, you might wonder? Check the blooper section.

Clouds formed continually and danced around the summit.

Our lengthy study of clouds and blowing ice in front of the massive, majestic mountain revealed…a face. What is this expression? Is this being resigned to the adamant power of the stone and snow?

“Help”…?

Our best view was inside the Visitor Center. And what a cute traveling companion!

The Visitor Center, indicated by the yellow arrow, is at 6,400 feet. Less than halfway to the summit, but way too high to hike in the spring. So we drove back down to 3,000 feet for a hike to Carter Falls, shown by the red arrow.

On the way, we stopped at Naruda Falls. It speaks loudly and makes rainbows!

There’s that cute travel companion!

See her dance the Slushy Jiggy!

Your Federal Dollars at Work 💪🏼

The Carter Falls hike starts with a crossing of the Pisqually River. As noted in the NPS web page, the log bridge often gives out in the winter. https://www.nps.gov/places/carter-falls-trailhead.htm. We happened upon a crew at work. They had chosen a boulder, moved it about 10 feet, then, below, put it in place.

Sure enough, perfect placement.

The falls are along a tributary 1.2 miles up a trail that ascends from 3,000-3,650 feet.

We do a lot less hiking now that we are living the island life. The air we sucked in felt COLD. We had to pause and rest along the way. We checked our speeding pulse rates. It occurred to us …

OMG, we are in our very late 60’s!

The falls were loud, full, rewarding. After Naruda Falls, they appeared more as steep cascades than true falls.

In the end, our legs were happy to be used. The car kept us toasty warm. The bright green, springtime landscape of forests and meadows wowed us for the 2.5 hour drive each way.

A beautiful adventure in all ways.

Bloopers

You’re lucky we don’t have photos of either story. 😆

When is a deal a deal?

Fox Car Rentals had amazingly low prices, so we bit. When we arrived at the rental desk at 12am (yes, in the middle of the night), we saw a line of 6 customers ahead of us. Dang.

Then we heard one say, “They’re out of cars.” More colorful language than “Dang.”

Upshot: At 1:30am, we had to Uber the 15 miles up to our condo in the Belltown neighborhood (think Space Needle), then (after a leisurely breakfast) Uber back down to the rental car center, spend 90 minutes getting reimbursed for the Uber and a day deducted from the rental contract, then picking up our Nissan Rogue and starting our vacation.

The silver lining amid the hours of wasted time? When all was said and done, our car cost $13.

We have now written off 3 car rental companies: Fox, Thrifty, and Payless. Sometimes a deal is just not a deal.

Where did [someone, doesn’t matter who] put the [ fill in the blank ]?

In this case, the missing thing is the fob that opens the giant steel door to the parking garage for our wonderful rented condo. It’s not in the bowl with the car keys. It’s not in the pockets of anything worn yesterday. It’s not in the couch cushions, the washer or dryer, under the bed, in the suitcase, in the trash, refrigerator, or kitchen sink.

We can’t get into the garage to see if it was left in the car because the elevator to the garage is broken. Reluctantly, we text our host, who is in Paris (the one in France). She had told us she does not normally permit guests to use her passkey to the private garage. Now we know why. We are embarrassed.

She texts back!!! MIRACLE!

She explains how to find the secret staircase to the garage. “Let’s look there before we begin remediation”… we can’t even imagine.

Oh, YESSSSSSSS! The fob is in the car! Hale-friggen-lujah!!!!!

And this is why we got to Mt Rainier Park long after the morning sun had become afternoon clouds.

C’est la vie!