Westcott on Wheels | Life Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This

I must confess. I had a pretty negative attitude about coming up to Washington for a month. I pictured myself stuck inside because it was cold and wet outside. Okay, I am big enough to admit when I am wrong and I was very wrong. While all of you are roasting out there across the country, we are having marvelous weather. Yes, it is a little chilly here where we are parked on the water, but the view is to die for. If we are inside we have a front seat look out at eagles flying around looking for breakfast, ships sailing back and forth across the sound, and we even caught a glimpse of a whale. The binoculars stay on the front dash because you never know what you will see out there. Here is the eagle eating breakfast on the beach.

With the weather being so beautiful we have been really busy. Golf here on base and in Burlington. We took the ferry over to Olympic Peninsula and caught the sights over there. The lavender was in bloom around Sequim and it was quite the sight. There is a bike path over there that we hope to go back and ride some of it. It is 130 miles from Port Townsend to the coast so a portion of it will have to do. We drove up to Hurricane Ridge for the view and a little hiking. Luckily the sun came out while we were there for some fabulous views. I have never seen so many deer before in one place. And they had no fear of all the people around taking their picture.

We have also done a day trip up to the Cascades and enjoyed the sights up that way. Also got to spend some more time with our friend Dianah at her house. Her and Frank have some marvelous views themselves.

But I have to say that the highlight so far has been the two day trip down to Mr. Rainier. We left the motorhome at the base (it is a 3.5 hour drive) and rented a condo for two nights so we could do some serious hiking. And hike we did. First day we got in around 8.5 miles and just had the most fabulous weather to be able to enjoy the mountain in all it’s glory. Here are some of the photos from the first day on the Sunrise Trail. Kean even talked me into going on the “dangerous” climb and I pretty much freaked out. The trail was on the snowy side and we were walking on the face of the mountain in the snow with no way to catch yourself if you fell or if the trail gave way. I got across and told Kean to go on without me the rest of the way. I like to think that I am the smarter one on the family. I tried to capture the scariness for you. When I got safely back on solid ground, I asked the Park Ranger if anyone had ever fallen. She said yes, that it is quite dangerous and that the people that fall get hurt pretty badly. I am telling you it was really living on the edge.

The second day was also another glorious day in the mountains. Clear skies and views all the way to Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens from the Paradise Trail. The hike was only around 6.5 miles but it had more elevation. Paradise Trail is on the southern side which I thought was much prettier and you got much better views of Rainier. We hiked up and sat up there for lunch before hiking back down. I think you will see from the photos that life just doesn’t get any better than this. And if you have never visited here, put it on your bucket list. The last two photos need a little explanation. In one we caught some mountain goats. A little hard to see because they blend well into the snow. The other you will see some dots in the snow. That is actually mountain climbers. We saw several groups climbing to base camp and passed several groups coming down after going to the top that morning. That was pretty cool to see but dangerous stuff. We saw a small avalanche the day before on the mountain.