Seattle Day 2-3

Months before our trip to Seattle, I asked Nate what he would like to do (being that he had only been there once in the winter and for 1 weekend in Aug)  His #1 answer was camp at Mt. Rainier.  This was perfect!  I was born and raised in Washington, and had NEVER been to Mt. Rainier.  You can slap my hand now.  We decided to included my best friend, Lindsay and her Todd.  I made a camping reservation, hoping I picked a good campground/spot.  It turned out to be perfect!  We were pretty secluded with beautiful views.
Again, let me back up a little.  I tend to get ahead of myself. (You must humor me, this is my only form of "journaling", so I want to get everything down that I can remember)

Saturday was Snoqualmie day.  We planned on staying with Lindsay Saturday night so we could wake up early and leave for Mt. Rainier early Sunday morning.
We arrived at their cute house and decided to head to the lake for swimming.  The water was pretty cold, but it was nice being in a clean lake for once.  We had Taco Time for dinner (YUMMY) and headed to Wal-Mart to stock up on our camping food/supplies.

Sunday morning we drove the 2 hours to Mt. Rainier, set up camp, and then headed out for some hiking.  I wish I could describe how magnificent the sites were.  Ohio has it's own beauty, but nothing can top the Northwest.  We started out hiking at the Grove of the Patriarchs.

We then did a little exploring and hiked down to the river.

After getting all hot from hiking, we decided what better way to end the day then a swim-er, polar bear swim.  Being that it is Seattle, the snow is still melting from the mountains in July.  We pretty much just swam in freshly melted snow.  Now, when I say swam, I really mean jumped in, and flew back out.  It was still fun and a GREAT way to cool off.

Back at camp, we prepared our foil dinners and settled down for the night.

The next morning, we packed up and headed out for more hiking.  It was a much colder this day, so it's a good thing we got our polar bear swim out of the way.  At one point of our drive/park/hike, we came across snow.  In fact, there was so much snow, we were told not to hike.  We kept looking for the infamous wildflowers, but I guess there was just too much snow still.  We stopped at so many places along the way, taking some great pictures.  Here are just a sampling of them:

 Todd & Lindsay

 Muah

  Beaver Trinette

What we will be doing in 30 years

 We got so close to these deer

 Mt. Rainier was def. a highlight of the trip and I can not believe I had never been there.  Thanks, Atchison's for housing/driving us around everywhere.  Miss you guys like crazy!