Day 26 (4/26)
Mt Rainier . . .
After breakfast, we got the bikes down off the rack and headed upstream on the bike path. What a nice ride past city parks, condos, older neighborhoods, playing fields and open spaces. Across the river was more rural country. We came across a paddle-wheel riverboat moored at its loading ramp. This was one of its daylong stops on the tours it provides up and down the river. We’d gone just under 5 miles when we reached the up river end of the path, so on our return we went past our starting point and even did a lap around the parking lot bring our total to 10 miles.
For the last two days we had been driving through the high desert farming country of eastern Idaho and western Oregon. Around lunchtime we pulled into the town of Yakima in Washington, outside of which our friend Marguerite Fletcher grew up on an apple farm. We had been there a couple times when the kids were young and the Fletchers were there visiting. After getting a bite a small barbeque house in the historic district and eating it in the van, we got some coffee across the street at what was the old train. Connie texted Marguerite what we had done and she told us that she knew the place when it was a pub.
The farmland grew lumpier and it wasn’t long before we could see Mount Rainier, even though it was hours away. Soon the rolling hills were covered with both hardwoods and conifers and the shades of browns and reds and yellows of the dry country we had been driving through for most of a month gave way to verdant greens. We drove through river canyons that would open into farming valleys and then, it was just forests. At one point we turned onto a much smaller road and wound our way upward through several stands of Aspens and Alders. Finally, Google Maps told us to turn right. But the only road near where we were supposed to turn was a dirt road. We turned around and came back to it and just as we started up, a Park Service pickup pulled on to it. We both stopped and rolled down our windows. To my “Does this road lead to the National Park Hotel?”, I got “It’s for park vehicles only”. To my “Google Maps’ got some ‘splaining to do”, I got assent from all in the other truck.
The slightly longer route on the better road got us to the park entrance pretty quickly and a few miles up the road there it was, The National Park Hotel. Unlike the Lodge at Zion, the National Park Hotel was built a long time ago. It was the annex to the original hotel built in 1891 and burned down in 1926. Rooms are available with bath or with a shared bath down the hall. Though the building was old, it was very well kept up. We were a little anxious about what our room would be like, but that was dispelled as soon as we saw it. Though a little small, it was quite cozy and the bed comfortable.
When we went down for dinner, the dining room looked empty. Never one to pass up a chance to be a wise guy, I asked the hostess if she thought she might be able to find a table for us. In fact, we shared the room with two other couples. I had trout, which I had not been able to get in the Boise restaurant “voted best seafood restaurant for two years in a row” that served only Atlantic salmon in cooked in various way. Dinner was good, the atmosphere rustic and relaxed.