Seattle
Why seattle? It seems like I’m there all the time. The purpose of this trip was to see a football game of Michigan vs Washington. They cancelled that game, but we still had tickets. We decided to head out on and check out the Pacific Northwest for a few days.
Mount Saint Helens
Saturday we headed south to Mount Saint Helens. It was foggy most of the day, very thick. We stuck around and were presented to a beautiful day around 3pm when the fog had burned off.
Previously I had been to Windy Ridge Viewpoint, so this time we headed to Johnston Ridge Observatory. What a beautiful angle, especially with a mostly cloudless sky.
Portland and Olympic National Park
After Mount St. Helens, we headed down to Portland and to Multnomah Falls. Apparently they had some sort of reservation system running, and there was no place to park without a pass.
We also visited the Latourell Falls as we headed down 30 towards Portland.
Sunday we woke up and headed north up the coast. First we headed to Astoria and then to Cape Disappointment. Unfortunately, the ocean was pretty well fogged in. There was not a lot to see along the coast, so we headed up to Olympic National Park.
Mount Rainier National Park
Monday we headed to Mount Rainier National Park. We enjoyed a low to moderate crowd size and perfectly clear weather. It’s still impressive how big this mountain is.
Whale Watching
On a former trip to the Pacific Northwest, I went with Island Adventures. They have an amazing policy of guaranteed whales, for a lifetime. So I was able to go again. We were treated to an Orca pod of a mom and 2 sons. The pod traveled for approximately a mile before an abrupt direction change.
The whales started hunting and feeding right next to a shallow area. It was pretty exciting to watch. To top off the afternoon, we were treated to a minke whale. Island Adventures did a great job and wrote a blog post about it.
