Mt. "Rainy"-er

I broke down and bought another camera. I just couldn't be without a camera for any longer! It would be one thing if I were just hanging in Salt Lake or whatever, but I'm traveling the world here! Come on! So, it's nothing fancy, just something to get me by until I get my camera back. And who knows when that will be!

So....Kim and I attempted to see some tourist attractions yesterday. I don't think we could have picked a worse day! Don't get me wrong, it rains here quite a bit, but it's usually what we like to call a "Washington Drizzle" and it's just that, a drizzle. Well, not yesterday. It rained in sheets pretty much all day and all night. So, in our attempt to see Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier (hence my clever play on words in the title!!) we pretty much saw....clouds and trees. I did get a few pictures, but the day was kind of a disappointment. We tried to go up the east side of Mt. St. Helens and I'm kind of surprised we didn't ge stuck in the snow. It was a little scary for a minute! Once we got through that, the biggest emergency was the lack of bathrooms! Luckily tragedy was averted on that one, but it was a long way back to Tacoma (after a detour in Olympia looking for a restaurant...apparently they don't have any there??) and some food! We devoured what felt like a seven course meal at Outback. I don't think I've ever eaten a better steak! We made it home in one piece and I wrapped the night up by watching the new episode of ER. So, the whole day wasn't bad, I was just really bummed that we didn't get to see really anything that we had set out to see. I've looked Mt. St. Helens up on the internet and it looks like going up the west side is the way to go since there is a visitor's center and observatory over there. So, we will have to try to go back on a day that has a little bit better weather! Here are a few pictures....

I'm pretty sure that's not Mt. Rainier but it's really the only mountain that we were able to see that wasn't covered with clouds!

This is a waterfall we encountered somewhere along the way...

And the snow that better stay in the mountains! I do not want to drive in this crap again anytime soon!

Proof that we were actually near Mt. St. Helens. It was too cloudy and foggy for pictures of anything else.

I am headed to Portland tomorrow to see some old friends from middle school. Yes, that was like 20 years ago, save the rude comments! So I'm sure I'll have some crazy pictures from that. Stay tuned...