Mt. Rainier

When my parents were in town a few weeks ago, they wanted to go see Mt. Rainier up close and personal. So one of the days I had off work and a day that Chuck could leave work a little early, we got in the car and headed south towards the mountain. It was mid afternoon when we headed down there, so our plan was to just drive around a bit, maybe take a short hike to a lookout point, and mostly just see the sights and snap some cool pictures.

We discovered on the long drive, you can't accidentally go to Mt. Rainier.  There's really only one or two ways to get there and they're not obvious. You have to mean to go there. It was a scenic drive though and when we finally reached the entrance to the park we were really excited! 

Our first stop was just inside the park at the visitor center Longmire. We got some great pictures from this stop and bought some Mt. Rainier souvenirs in the gift shop. 

In the gift shop while my parents and I shopped, Chuckie learned all about bears, just in case we happened upon any while we were sight-seeing.

When we finished shopping and taking pictures, we got back in the car and headed further up the mountain towards the next visitor center and lodge, Paradise. We stopped a lot along the way to get pictures!

When we finally reached Paradise, we felt like we had driven up the entire mountain. Mt. Rainier looked HUGE from this spot and we were sure we had driven as close to the top as possible! My dad googled though and found that Paradise is only located at 5,400 ft. Mt. Rainier is 14,410 ft. We weren't even halfway!

We couldn't do too much exploring either because of all the snow. We walked on some 10 foot snow walls and looked around a little, but there wasn't much else we could do. Dad and Chuckie were braver than me and mom and went up higher on the snow piles. Of course they wanted us to take their picture representing the Cards at Mt. Rainier.

After the long drive back down, we were starving and my dad had his heart set on eating at the Elbe Bar & Grille, a place we passed on our way to the park earlier in the day. My dad has this thing about eating at local restaurants when he's on vacation. His famous line is "We're in a different city, I'm not eating at an APPLEBEE'S," which is funny because I'm pretty sure my parents never eat at Applebee's at home... Anyway, He refuses to eat at any chain restaurant when traveling. I understand his rule and even like it, except for when he chooses questionable places like the Elbe Bar & Grille or anything with a name like "Chat n Chew" as he's done before.  We all gave in though and after getting some pictures of the town of Elbe, we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.

 

We saw a couple of "characters" in the parking lot and almost turned around and left, but dad was determined so we went with it. And in the end, it turned out not so bad after all! It was a small joint, full of locals, country music and Wheel of Fortune on the big screen TV. We had some drinks and pizza and enjoyed some people watching. And since we enjoyed ourselves, now dad thinks he can talk us into any restaurant on vacations. Given our experience in Elbe, I may be more open to the idea but I'm pretty sure I will still never eat at a place called the "Chat n Chew." Sorry, dad!