Day 14 (Aug. 14, '09)

Got a slow start this morning. Gr. Bill and I finally won another game of H & F. The final record is Gr. Judy and Cecil with 5 wins, Gr. Bill and I with 2 wins.

Cecil and I packed up the Jeep but didn't end up leaving until 3:30 PM. We'll see them again in Georgia when they drive down. :)

Gr. Bill's famous pancakes.

Grandma set us up with a tray of brownies, cherries, rolls, peppermint patties and "The Host". What a nice grandma, for she hadn't even read the book yet.

Drove towards Mt. Rainier. Had to go through Tacoma during rush hour.

We stopped at Enumclaw for their McD's, which was probably one of the nicest McD's I have even seen. All the lady employees wore skirts. We continued through the Chinook Pass on Hwy. 410. Very beautiful area. I saw the biggest trees I've ever seen in a campground named "The Dalles". The trees were Douglas Fir trees. One was 9 feet in diameter. The campground was very spacious with huge trees in each spot. Loved the area, would have liked to camp there. It was full and we were wanting to go further.

Mt. Rainier Nat. Park. Foggy!

We continued onto Mt. Rainier National Park. It was weird, because everyplace to hike required a pass, but you couldn't get a pass there. I guess we were supposed to acquire the pass somewhere before we went into the park.

Anne spotted this elk in the park.

Almost at the southern border of the park we stopped at a campground, but it was full. It's dark already, now we don't know where to go. Seems like we put ourselves in this same situation too often.

We decided to follow the road towards Longmire and Paradise Inn to see if they had room there. The route from where we are is going to be about 30 miles over extremely curvy roads and did I mention you can cut the fog with a knife its so thick? We finally reached the lodge. So much bigger than what we expected! People were everywhere, and no parking spots. Rooms without a bath is $110. Forget it. Sure would like to see what this famous area looked like in the daylight though. We were too overwhelmed to stay in the area.

Continued on down the road but every place has been closed. Eventually made it out of the park. It's about 11:30 PM now. Drove about 12 miles or more to a town called Morton. You can tell even in the dark that it is a real logging town. No places to stay. Onward to next town called Mossy Rock. We found a state park campground there.

I went out of the car to check it out if we could pay by sticking money in an envelope. Right then a cop car (park security cop) pulled up. He was nice and accommodating. Showed us to the very last camping spot available in the park. Slept in the Jeep. $21 for parking in this spot for 9 hours then leaving. In Canada or Alaska we would have pulled off onto the side of the road, just didn't feel comfortable doing that here. Oh well!