Rainier, 2

We camped three nights at the relatively low and warm Ohanapecosh campground, just inside the park. It was Memorial Day weekend, and we were grateful just to have a legal place to park. We did some day hikes, twice to Silver Falls and then also the much shorter Ancient Trees trail. These in addition to driving up to Paradise to see the mountain.

Among some big trees

Duly noting the warnings; also "drop, cover, hold on" from New Zealand

A hot spring very near the campground

Me, laughing

Silver Falls; actually a long series of cascades

S

Us, there

Another day, another hike, out to see the old trees

A rare small area never logged

Of course I felt it my patriotic duty to have a Rainier beer

Lest anyone be concerned, the forest products industry is doing
just fine these days...

Mt. Rainier, 1

Our next goal was Mt. Rainier, which we'd visited in 1972 and then again in 2001 or so. This required passing through Yakima, which occasioned many 1972 memories...an evening at the drive-in movies, among other things, and my first viewing of what later became a favorite movie...The Fearless Vampire Killers (Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate; and Jack McGowan)...and some of the best junk shoppes ever, up to that time, including one with a B-17 bombardier nose bubble. How do I know all this, you ask? Well, Memory spoke, and I also consulted my travel journals from that time, which I always carry with me. Digitized, of course. My whole life, 4TB, the size of a deck of cards...

Thus

And thus

Anyhow, after a night in a disused campground in the national forest,
we drove on up to the national park entrance

Resolving to camp at maybe a lower elevation

Hoping to re-do this picture of me, in August, 1972, gazing upon
the great mountain

It was at this point, however, that we learned that my Pixel 3
phone/camera had lost its ability to focus; perhaps it was trying 
to tell us you can never go back...

A few days later, and with an actual camera, we managed this
shot; but it just wasn't the same...

Anyhow, a few pix of the mountain...from Paradise

"Ye icefalls! Ye that from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous
ravines slope amain...Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge..." (Coleridge)

On Whidbey Island

The weekend of May 22nd-23rd we spent visiting one of Vicki's high school classmates, Lynn B. and her husband Ken, at their beautiful home in Oak Harbor, on a bluff overlooking the water back to the mainland. We were wined and dined and wined some more, given a great tour of the island, Lynn and Vicki catching up, and Ken, a retired USN captain, bringing my knowledge of naval aviation up past the gasoline era (c. 1945). He was an Intruder pilot, XO on a couple of the super-carriers, commanded a base, and administered a war college, among other things. It was a great weekend.

From their bluff, looking back toward Mt. Baker

One of our outings was to Penn Cove; the marine museum there

So if you know mussels, you know Penn Cove mussels...

Dinner consisted mostly of a huge pot of steamed mussels and
then salmon grilled on a cedar plank; I was in heaven

Lynn and Vicki at Fort Casey

We were missing the Rhodo riot we love in England, but got to
see a pretty good one in Washington

At the Captain Whidbey Inn

Back at the house, a resident eagle surveys his domain 

An A-6 Intruder, subsonic, long range, low altitude, carrier-based; Ken
flew one of these and was XO on the carrier Independence during the
filming of Flight of the Intruder, which we watched one evening; not
your daddy's navy, as one might say

Steelhead Park

Unlike some other parts of the world, county parks in the US rarely include campgrounds, especially campgrounds with full amenities. The Howard Miller Steelhead Park, in Rockport, WA, on the beautiful Skagit River, is a stupendous exception: sixty-some river-front campsites, miles of trails, and a variety of historical structures and signage of interest. Miller was a fishing guide of note and later four-term county commissioner. 

Excellent signage

And artifacts...

Best trailhead signage ever, so far

Hiking the riparian trails

Beautiful Skagit River

Campsite

OK, rotate your screen clockwise 90 degrees: innovative use of
actual boulder for bouldering; in the kiddie park

Azaleas...

And rhododendrons in bloom all over western Washington

Even the bird-house tree was blooming