One of the things we were most excited about doing was going to Mount Rainier. It's the 5th oldest National Park and is an impressively beautiful place to spend a day or more. We grabbed something to eat for breakfast at Nollie's, near where we live, and headed out. Traffic wasn't bad and we decided to take the longer way past Tacoma, rather than the route through Puyallup. The grating Washington State highway noise was a little annoying in our loud car, but after we turned onto some smaller highways the road was quieter and the scenery gradually improved.

Shortly after entering the park, we stopped at the Twin Firs Loop trail head. It's about a half-mile long trail, but we took plenty of time to enjoy the green plants and impressively-large trees. It was a nice short hike.

Next we stopped at Longmire and walked the Trail of the Shadows. This trail was slightly longer and had more diverse surroundings. There was a meadow with a view of Mount Rainier, a few natural springs whose iron content highlighted the ground with rust-color. There was also a historical cabin from a family that had lived there and a variety of impressive plants.

After this walk, we were getting hungry, so we stopped to eat at picnic tables near Cougar Rock. We had brought a variety of tasty local food to eat. There was a giant peach and Rainier cherries, a delicious type of hybrid cherry that is grown in the area, from Pike Place Market. We also brought some Cougar Gold cheese and some Dutch Gouda cheese that we had purchased in Leavenworth to enjoy with some crackers. There was trail mix, a bag of salt & vinegar chips, granola bars, and vegan beef jerky from Whole Foods. We also brought some Chukar Cherries for dessert. We were pretty full and satisfied after all that.

Our next stop was Narada Falls, which was impressive as always and featured a partial double rainbow. We then headed to Paradise, where we checked out the relatively new visitor center. From a telescope within the visitor center, we were able to see a couple hikers part way up the mountain. We also watched a short but enjoyable video on the park. We had hoped to hike some around there but there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground.

So, we continued on to Reflection Lake. There was snow that prevented us from walking around there as well, but it was still beautiful and we enjoyed the view. We drove further along to Box Canyon and did the short walk there near the huge glacially-carved rocks and over the stream more than a hundred feet below. We also had a view of Mount Adams.

Continuing on, we made one final stop within the park at the Grover Grove of the Patriarchs. This trail was along a river and had a lot of huge trees, but we didn't feel like doing the whole thing, so we headed back.

This was the most hiking we had done at Mount Rainier and I really enjoyed it. The drive home also seemed shorter than it has seemed in the past.

On the way home we ordered pizza from Pagliacci - the Verde Primo and the AGOG Primo - both of which were very good. It was after 8 by then and the rest of the night we hung out at our apartment played some more games.