What a great weekend
Taken near the picnic spot of Rainier itself, hidden behind the clouds.
Yes, left here Saturday morning about 8:45 or so intending to be ON the road by 8:30 and high tailed it to Enumclaw where my oldest sister lives. From there I was to leave the car and we'd drive out to Mt Rainier together since she's going to be driving solo. This gave us a chance to visit and such. A great drive was had. We took the back roads out to SR 7 that'll get us to the town of Elbe, and then on into the park itself. Essentially, we took the back roads out through Orting and such on the way. Got in and didn't see anyone at Longmire that we recognized. I knew to look for Ellen and her husbands 2001 green Mercedes, which will have my youngest sister riding along in the backseat. Kyle and Erin in their gold Chrysler Town and Country mini van with their three boys, and us in sal's 2010 Honda Oddessey van.
We then headed up to our favorite place, Cougar Rock. Cougar Rock has been our place Du-Jour for decades, ever since my family first descinded upon the mountain in either 1964, or 1965. We'd first moved to the area in August, renting a house for a few months while we looked to buy, moving just days before Christmas of '64. So if we went, it was right after we moved here for the first time, otherwise, we waited until the following spring/summer to go, which would be after I was born.
We'd go almost yearly to Cougar Rock to the picnic area on the right side of the road, the campground itself is on the left as you headed up to Paradise Visitor Center. The entrance to take is the Nisqually interance at Longmire, a hotel and picnic area that is just inside the gates. However, by Sept 29th, they'd already closed Cougar Rock for the season as just down below Cougar Rock, they put up a sign that says, no vehicles beyond this point without traction devices or all/4 wheel drive. This is past Longmire, that area gets lots of snow during the winter months. This is why 3 of our major passes over the Cascades close every Oct through May, Chinook Pass, and Washington Pass are two. Washington Pass is also known as the North Cascades Highway, a great fall destination to go and see the fall colors as they tend to be stunning and is reputed to be one of the most beautiful fall scenes in the state.
Anyway, so we headed up to Paradise, as we'd discussed and found a picnic area down below the visitors center, and that is where we met up and found a spot with a fire pit, a metal pit on a metal pole to heat food on.
There were also two picnic tables for us to use, one to serve the food at, one to eat and sit at. We had a great time even though the weather turned iffy and it spittled or actually rained on us some, however, we stayed mostly dry. We had a grand time.
Then we left and headed back into civilization around 4pm or so and Sal and I took an even LONGER route home, getting there closer to 6:30 or so, by going through Orting and Buckly and such before finally getting to the house. I came home with a bunch of produce to consume, and must call my apt manager as my oven is on the fritz today and see what can be done about it.
Needless to say, I didn't get home until almost 9pm.
Yesterday was laundry which resulted in not one, but TWO trips to the grocery store for quarters as I discovered one of our washers was broken, and lost a $1.75. :-( Had to go get another dollar's worth to dry.
Other than that, not too much, and worked on the large Beatles project that had me frustrated as I could have sworn I had MORE tracks than I had, but had all but Octopuses Garden, so will have to re-record that one. Apparently it never got saved when I recorded it. Ooops.
I also found a couple of tracks that never got levels adjusted, and trimmed so fixed those and moved some others that remained in the raw tracks, and should have been saved in the final vinyl tracks folder, so now, once I get Octopuses Garden, I can begin the playlist order and once Roxio CD burning software is reinstalled, I can then make the CD's.
So that's the bulk of the weekend right there. Weatherwise, it was nice. Saturday, low 70's, yesterday, we hit 74, 10 degrees above normal, the low was probably around 56, today, 74 and sunny again, with the low tonight around 55. As we get into next week, it'll be rain and in the upper 50's for the high, yeah, it's cooling down, that's for sure. Nice. I doubt we got over 60 up at the mountain Saturday, and it felt definitely like fall as jackets were necessary for at least part of the day.
So outside of washing a mountain of dishes yesterday, that's been the bulk of things. Next up, fix lunch and get my ass out the door to work.