Mt. Ranier or is it Rainier?

We left Port Townsend in the cloud of rain and sorted our way through the Puget Sound. The drive was scenic and reasonably peaceful. An observation of Washington and Oregon is the tendency to cut the number of bathrooms in half. Most places we stopped simply had one restroom. It is probably no big deal to most, but if you are traveling with 5 women, then, go figure.

The kids were generally unimpressed by 99% of the scenery along the way. The phones, iPad, iPods and computers were the only beauty they seemed to notice along the way. It mattered not, my guess is one day they will find themselves driving the windy roads of the northwest and wondering why their children seemed to care less.

However, Caleb did have an interest in Mt. Ranier. He was convinced it was out the driver's side of the car and I told him otherwise. Don't tell him, but he was right.

We had a viewpoint for Mt. Ranier that most of us got out to take a peak. It turned out, that the small opening in the cloud at that moment was the only siting we would have that day. The amazing paradox for us was just a couple days earlier we were many miles away sailing in the Puget Sound and had a perfect view of the mountain, but with just a few miles away, all we saw was fog.

But Kelly, Caleb and I seized the moment and hike a few yards into the 20+ foot deep snow at Paradise. Who couldn't resist the opportunity to pelt their defenseless wife with a snowball?

The drive from Mt. Ranier to Mt. St. Helens was a rainy one. There was so much rain, that I asked my new friend, Angus, whether we should make the journey to the volcano or not. He said we would be limited to how close we could get approaching it from the west, plus the rain would make it highly unlikely we would see anything.

So we loaded up the family and headed to Salem. Caleb was so thankful to be out of the minivan he danced around the Kinghorn's front yard!