I Warned You Earlier!

I think I gave fair warning earlier, that with me living in such close proximity to Mount Rainier, you were bound to see lots more pictures. I'm making good on that promise!

Since I'm only awake for sunrise when I've been working the night shift, I've been watching for a good sunrise picture of the mountain. One day last week, the way the sun was peaking through the clouds was pretty amazing. Well, by the time I got to my favorite picture-taking spot, the mountain was covered a little, but here's what I saw:
Now that it's on the computer, I can see it doesn't look as good as it does in person, but you can just use your imagination a little!

Then, the next morning, it was perfectly clear out! Sometime I'd like to drive a little farther and see what it looks like with the sun directly behind it in the morning, but this particular morning I was too tired and needed to just get home to bed.


This past Saturday I had the great joy of seeing my cousin, Tim! He was in town for a few days before flying to Norway, and we got to spend a good part of the day together. I drove up to Seattle to pick him up, then we decided to drive back and head to Mount Rainier because of the PERFECT day outside. I'm so glad we went!!

This picture shows where we pull up to the Visitor's Center at Paradise. It was funny for me to see ALL the cars, because that other day I was there during the snowfall, there were literally only three other cars in the parking lot. On Saturday, it was full and overflowing to the road! I guess weather really does make a difference for people! It was also interesting to me that during the snowfall, since I couldn't actually see any of the mountain, I thought it was somewhere else! I thought it was out what I consider the 'front' of the visitors center, when in reality it's in back!


You can see all the glaciers at the top, and if you look real close at some of the tiny black dots, you might be able to see that those are, in fact, people hiking up to the top. We were able to see different groups hiking when we looked through the telescope at the visitors center.


Tim and I, standing on snow. It was a refreshingly cool day.


I love all the different shades of blue that are created by the depth in this picture. Just ignore all the cars! I wish I had a better tele-photo lens....


You might recognize this waterfall from my first visit. It was really fun to see it without the huge snowflakes that were falling!


Tim looking out over the waterfall.


We saw a whole bunch of trees that only grow branches on one small side of the tree. Can anyone explain this to me? Is it just the wind, or some other phenomena?


We stopped at a "viewpoint" spot on the way back out of the park. It was so great to have a nice, clear day to see the mountain in all its glory with the bright blue sky behind it.

This was a perfect day at the park! Thanks, Tim, for the fun! I can't wait to check out your blog and see all sorts of pictures of the great things you'll see in Norway!