Gust Backstrom City Park

We made it to Gust Backstrom City Park after some windy roads. Everyone has a cold, so it made picking out a site and settling in much harder than it should of been. However, we ended up with a nice and free boondocking spot for a night, since the staff accidently gave our site away. They also threw in a slew of free firewood!

We cooked some sausages and s'mores over the campfire that night. The people of the small town of Morton set off fireworks here and there for the 4th. Michael read from "The Mysterious Benedict Society" #5 in between the blasts.

Since we didn't feel great and it was hard to compete with the spectacular fireworks we saw last year in Washington, DC, we watched some and went to bed. The next day, we packed up and moved into site #13 which was more level and had a better Verizon signal than our original site. It all worked out much better in the end.

There was a river running by the park. The kids really liked playing with some 9 year old twins and a 12 year old boy named Walter by throwing rocks in the water, playing frisbee on the field and groundies on the playground.

The kids found a crawfish and there were also a ton of stone fly larvae on the rocks in the water that encased themselves in bits of rock and dirt.

Our primary adventures for this location were Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier National Park. We went to Mt. St. Helens on Thursday after Michael was done with work. 

I was told that it is beautiful; alas, a huge cloud hid its beauty. However, we could more readily imagine the colossal 1980 eruption sending ash, rock and gases 15 miles up into the sky. We met some people who hiked up and glissaded (here is a new vocabulary word for me: sitting down and sledding on your bottom) into the crater.

The wildflowers here were very pretty! We love seeing lots of foxgloves on the side of the road all over the Pacific Northwest!

The views looking away from Mt. St, Helens were so beautiful. These sun rays were breathtaking. 

Saturday, July 9th was my 40th birthday! Jordan wrapped all my presents and gave them to me throughout the day to open and enjoy.

We got up and headed to Mt. Rainier National Park. Once I got Junior Ranger books for the kids and learned of the the perfect picnic spot, we went on a hike right behind the Henry M. Jackson Paradise Visitor's Center. 

It was covered in snow except for a couple of these patches of dirt where this marmot was scavenging for food right by Caleb.

Once the marmot looked up, he ran past Michael. 

We got to the bridge on top of Myrtle falls, and the falls were covered in snow. We could hear the falls but couldn't get to the overlook because it was closed due to several feet of snow. 

Since, most of the trails in Paradise were snowy except for the one I wanted to do in the afternoon, and since the sun would be in position to create a rainbow, we drove down the mountain to Longmire to have a fantastic picnic. We walked over this bridge to get there.

"Oh, wow!" I said this every time I looked up and gaped at this huge mountain. I probably said it 40 times throughout the day. "Praise the Lord!" A steller's jay kept circling around us while we ate our Tillamook cheese and crackers. 

After lunch, the kids turned in their Junior Ranger books at Longmire Museum. We saw all sorts of stuffed animals. We saw a creature called a fisher that had gone extinct here, which led them to introduced Canadian fishers the park. We never did see an alive one. Maybe that is why Caleb has an absurd look on his face? No, he is just being his silly self. 

We enjoyed the Trail of Shadows after lunch. There used to be a mineral springs resort back in the day, and we could see the bubbling water surrounded by stonework. It was odd to see a puddle in the field bubbling because of carbon dioxide coming up from the earth. The kids made leaf boats and let them sail in the bubbles. Next, we came upon a black-tailed deer foraging by the trail.

It is hard to resist walking on fallen trees out into a meadow and travertine mounds

Once we finished the trail, we went back to Paradise to see the Narada Falls and hopefully a rainbow too. We stopped at the viewpoint right by the falls and walked down a slippery short trail to see not only one, but two rainbows in the falling water!

The kids wanted to play in the snow so badly, so we went by the visitor's center and let them enjoy it! The one sledding area was closed, but they glissaded and built forts for snowball fights.

We checked out Christine falls on our way out. They were big (you can't tell in the photo) and after taking this picture I saw Asher just walking on the wall of the bridge; I almost had a heart attack at 40. 

I went over there to see what he could see, and stop the other two from doing the same thing. I love my not-so-little mountain goats!

On the other side, there were more gorgeous falls with another bridge over the top of the falls in the distance. Michael, Asher and I hiked to the bridge. The water is a milky blue that comes from a "flour" that is made by the glaciers grinding down the rock. There are 25 glaciers at Mt. Rainier and lots of beautiful bluish water.

I picked Himalayan for my birthday dinner at Wild Berry Restaurant. It is owned by a once Mt. Everest World Record holder. He climbed it in about 11 hours. Now he owns a restaurant and guides others to the top of Mt. Rainier. I enjoyed my Sherpa Stew!