First time up the mountain

Hal writes:

The first couple of photos come from the previous weekend. I stopped at Wright Park for the Tacoma Ethnic Fest. The park is over a hundred years old and in recent years has gone through some updating and repairs. My favorite part is they have an area for lawn bowling and you can join the old timers on Sunday and Thursday evenings to play. Pictured below is one of the ponds (it used to be the local boys swimming hole way back in the day) with some statues and a fountain.

The first performance I saw was a group of steel drummers from the Caribbean. They were playing an extended version of "Dancing Queen". This humoured me to see a group like this covering a Swedish pop hit. Cross-cultural indeed.

This group of Samoan girls was doing an interpretive Hawaiian dance while the adults played the instruments.

Sing with me now... "The hills are alive, with the sound of music. Aahhhhh..." Today Anna and I bought a year pass for Mt. Rainier National Park. Now when you come and visit us, you can visit the mountain for free with us. It was AMAZING. We went up the northern side, called Sunrise, which is only open a part of the year due to weather conditions. The picture below gives you an idea how close we were, but also the varying landscapes. In addition to the glaciers on the mountain, there are forests, rivers (from the melting ice), and meadows.



After traveling 60 miles to the base of the mountain, we drove up some switch backs to get towards the top. Here is Anna at one of the scenic overlooks on the way up the hill.

Hal at the scenic overlook. You can see the clouds rolling by at about the same height. Mt. Rainier is 14,000 feet above sea level. We only made it as high as 6,400 feet on the trails we took. Apparently you need experienced guides and gear to reach the summit. Only 9,000 people attempt the summit annually and, of those who don't turn back due to weather or altitude sickness, about only 4,000 make it to the top.

Looking down the valley into one of the lakes.

These were Anna's favorite flowers along the path. She wanted to frolic in the meadow, but was not allowed off the trail by her rule-adhering husband.

Some more flowers.

Another view of the mountain.

We were able to encounter some wildlife along the trails. In addition to the birds and chipmunks, we saw mountain deer and even a bear cub. We could see the bear cub at about 40 yards away, but he wasn't clear enough to get a good picture with. In addition to not leaving the trail, I didn't want to get in between baby and momma bear (wherever she was), so I was content to watch from afar. Can you find the mountain deer in the picture with Anna below?

Unlike the bear cub, this one was a little more photogenic.

Anna pretending to be a mountain. In case you didn't know, Anna enjoys the mountains and the fact that this is the largest "episodically active" volcano in the U.S. just adds to the thrill.

Hal along the trail.

Our other weekend activity included getting a new cell phone plan. No worries, our numbers are not changing, we just needed a new carrier. After researching the different plans, we ended up going with Sprint. This is now my third different cell phone carrier. The previous two plans I opted to go with the cheapest phone in the plan. This time, we went with something a little bit nicer. (And for the first time in my life, I have a better phone than my sisters. Ha ha!) Currently, we are in a transition period between carriers and are not receiving any calls, but that should be resolved in the next day or so.

I went with the new Samsung Instinct (aka "the iPhone killer"). Although I probably would have enjoyed the new iPhone, Apple plans cost to much and, as a non-tech person, I can do just as much with the Instinct as I can with the iPhone. So, I went from not having text messages as a part of my plan to being able to record video/take pictures and send them to people. Oh, and did I mention the satellite TV?

Whereas I went with the "toy", Anna went with the "business" (which is opposite of what the two of us usually do). Anna decided to go with the Blackberry Curve. She wasn't able to get a red one (they only had black available) but I think she will be OK. So, for the next month or so, we're both on the cool end of tech gizmos.

This next week my colleagues and I are taking a class together at Seattle University. We may spend a couple of nights in Seattle instead of driving the Tacoma rush hour traffic to/from each, but we are going to try it Monday and see what happens.