The last two days we have spent in Paradise were filled with almost no productive labor because we chose to do the laundry and watch the birds so I won’t bore any readers with detailed descriptions of the nothing we did. But today was our last full day in the Thousand Trails Paradise Campground so we had to do a little. It was also the day of the first total eclipse in the U.S. in more than 30 years. Here in Paradise, we only got to witness a 92% eclipse. Down south in Oregon, there was a big swath across the state where the eclipse was total and that had a detrimental effect on our ability to get reservations anywhere in the state. Small municipal airports, large pastures and county fairgrounds under the swath were filled with camping eclipse devotees. I wonder how many of them got hammered last night and slept through the big event this morning.
Paradise Campground is sort of located in the boonies so we were too disinterested in driving to a store where we could pay too much for approved eclipse viewing glasses. Instead, we poked a hole in a in an Irish Cream cardboard box and watched the progress of the eclipse with a pinhole camera. The images in the pinhole camera were not nearly as colorful or spectacular as the images we were able to see on the idiot box.
We are old so we may not have seen everything but we did notice that it got a lot darker and about 6 or 8 degrees cooler during this showy astronomical event. The birds around the campground seemed to think it was nighttime so they all went home and dummied up.
We were seated right outside the trailer watching the little image in the box when some other full-time RVers named Greg and Rowena accompanied by their large malemute named Sky Bear strolled by our viewing area and we struck up a conversation. These folks ended up staying around for a few hours and beers and glasses of wine. They were only about the third couple we have met in 37 months on the road that were seemingly completely compatible with us. Both of our RVs are headed basically south so maybe we’ll see them again.
After the excitement of the eclipse, we started our chores involving picking up all our stuff and stowing it, dumping the waste tanks, filling the water tank and making it look like we were never here. Peggy zinged through her fun chart pretty quickly which was great because I have been having a run-in with Plantar Fasciitis, a medieval disease afflicting old fat guys and maybe others, and Peggy generously jumped in to help on my chores. I imagine she got tired of my limping around and, because she is a sweetheart, she took the part of the load off this old geezer.
Tomorrow we will pull in the satellite antenna, disconnect the power umbilical, hook the Barbarian Invader to Charlotte’s fifth wheel hitch and bugger off. We are headed to Oregon tomorrow (where there are now ample camping opportunities) for Peg’s nephew’s wedding next weekend.

After a few days of considerable cloudy AM weather, we decided to make a stab at a trip around Mount Rainier to a place called Sunrise. Sunrise is located at 6400’+ on the northeast side of the massive volcano and is only accessible from the east side of the park. Our RV spot is located on the southwest side of the park.
Our route took us up the Cowlitz River on WA-12 until we got to Morton where we turned north on WA-7 to Elbe. In Elbe, we were temporarily detained at a railroad crossing for the mountain version of a steam train ride very similar to the steam train ride we took a few days ago. The ride from Elbe, however, passes through more mountainous terrain. As we drove east from Elbe, we could hear the steam train’s amply loud whistle scaring anything off the tracks.
On our way out of town, we ran across an artist’s sculpture park called Recycled Spirits of Iron. There some artist has re-purposed weighty pieces of iron into a variety of animal and whimsical artworks and it is remarkable how creative the guy is. Not too much further up the road (WA-706), we started the climb into Mount Rainier National Park. It is a spectacular drive through a series of river valleys, old-growth forests and stark, almost black volcanic rock. There are many small and a few large waterfalls visible from the highway.
On today’s trip, we passed by the Paradise area and continued on 706 to WA-123 where we turned north. We drove through some stunning territory (although the roads are extremely lumpy) until we turned off and continued a bit further north on WA-410. Soon, we found the road where we could follow west to Sunrise and hooked a left. The east end of WA-410 from 123 was closed due to forest fires between the junction and Yakima over in central Washington.
The road from WA-410 to Sunrise crosses the White River before angling sharply up. The road is quite narrow, has an abundance of curves, some tunnels, gigantic rock formations hanging over the road and very low speed limits. It also passes through stunning old-growth subalpine forests until it emerges above the treeline into a land of clouds, jagged rock, glaciers and the 8,000 feet taller Mount Rainier. The weather cooperated and cleared up as the day continued and our trip to this highest point one can drive to was terrific. Anyone wishing to go further up Rainier from Sunrise would need to go on foot and it is a long hike.
The sun on the glaciers generated colorful wisps of clouds that were blown sideways in the breeze. The views from Sunrise of all the lower Cascades are great. Above 6,000 feet, there are very few trees but there is a colorful riot of wilflowers. The terrain is very forbidding with volcanism as the culprit. At least 3 glaciers on the north face of Rainier are visible from Sunrise and abundant snowmelt runs down the slopes in jaw-dropping waterfalls and ash-colored streams.
Some 10,000 people try to climb Rainier each year and around half make it to the 14,411 foot summit. Extremely challenging rock climbing followed by lengthy steep trudges across city-sized glaciers and their nasty crevasses is required. The temperature at the top hovers around freezing. Winds can be treacherous and weather changes are extremely rapid. It looks like a place where one would want excellent gear if dying wasn’t on the agenda.
After spending quite a bit of time ogling and having a picnic, we started back down the mountain. We didn’t realize how far we were from home and it took two hours for us to negotiate the squiggly roads, sunken grades, long downslopes and ample scenery as we headed back to our RV park in Silver Creek. We spotted a couple of very tubby elk dining in roadside pastures. We also got passed on the terribly serpentine roads by some of the impatient who were only exceeding the park speed limit of 35 by about 25 mph. They were passing on curves on very narrow roads and we were surprised there was not a setback, like a lane-filling oncoming truck, to kill them. We didn’t get home until dark which is pretty late for geezers like us.
Despite the challenging roads, several prolonged road construction delays and the long distances involved, we can heartily recommend travelling all the roads in this awe-inspiring, majestic place. Assume wherever you go will take all day and you will be fine. Those without a federal access or geezer pass will need to cough up $25 per car for entry. There is very little camping or RV camping in the park. The best bet is to probably stay outside the park and drive in. It would be downright foolish for us to take our 34′ trailer in due to the roads, the climbs and the lack of RV spaces available in this national park.
We shot some pictures and you can see some of the good ones if you click here

I am afraid we were slugs again today and, therefore, I have little to report. Peggy did some sewing with her new 1951 sewing machine and I dumped the waste tanks. The weather has been very cloudy in the mornings for the last few days so we have been reluctant to head into the mountains to see white clouds and little else.
Our next exploring destination will be a trip up Mount Rainier to Sunrise but, with the weather being uncooperative, we have been obliged to do stuff like reading. It’s not too bad. I kinda like it.

We had nothing on the schedule and we completed everything. There was a tough morning with coffee and breakfast in front of Perry Mason on the TV. Peggy and I got the trailer battery out of side cubbyhole and checked the electrolyte level which sounds much more difficult than it is.
In the nearby community of Salkum there is a very nice library with free wifi which works very well. The wifi here at TT Paradise Campground is lousy although free. Since we intended to do a little interweb stuff, we chose to pop over to the library. There we found a wooden picnic table under a big sun shade and we did our blog sending or interfacing or whatever the proper names are. The wifi at the library was very steady and very fast. Ten pictures go up to Google Photos in about 15 seconds. I have not been able to get the Paradise Campground wifi to load one picture in any amount of time.
Our intertube stuff completed, we decided to make a stop at the local Salkum Market where some Haagen Daz ice cream bars somehow found their way into our groceries. I can’t explain it but I bet Peggy can. Our nothing for today completed, we headed back to Paradise Campground where we were treated to another view of the three volcanoes east of us. They are spectacular snow-capped giants in the eastern view.

The weather cleared during the night and we awoke to a gorgeous day with just a few tiny clouds. Our visibility woes gone, we decided to take a spin up to Mount St. Helens or what is left of her. Back in May of 1980, St. Helens put on a spectacular show when the mountain exploded, blowing away the northern slope, lopping 1800 feet off the peak and knocking down 200 square miles of Weyerhaeuser’s timber. The massive earth movement re-contoured the Toutle River upper valley, buried many square miles of timber under 150 feet of ash and sent many lahars down the lower Toutle blocking it, the Cowlitz and ultimately depositing tons of slop into the Columbia River. Fifty-some folks were killed and the damage was 1.1 billion dollars in 1980 bucks.
When we arrived, the weather cooperated by being quite clear. Plainly visible from many spots along the park road are the remains of absolute devastation. Almost all the terrain on the north and west sides of the mountain remains almost completely devoid of any vegetation. The Toutle River is busy carving new channels through the gigantic ash deposits. The water in the Toutle is the gray color of the ash. Flat areas, however, are regenerating a rich habitat and many critters have colonized the area.
We finally made it to the end of the WA-504 which terminates at the Johnston Ridge Visitor Center and Observatory. The views of St. Helens four miles from the visitor center are stunning. There is a big bulge on the crater floor where the mountain has tried to rebuild itself. The top of the bulge has a big crack in it which emanates steam visible for miles. From the visitor center 11,000 foot plus Mount Adams a bit further east can also be seen. It is also a volcano. We could see a small elk herd wandering around on the newly reconfigured Toutle watershed.
As we departed, we spotted what appeared to be massive slides on the lower west slope of St. Helens that put up plumes of dust visible for at least 7 miles. This may have been the only time in my life where I actually get to see some geology happening.
We exited the park to the west and soon arrived in Toledo where we turned off to finish our drive home along the north shore of the Cowlitz River. We found a spectacular view from this road where we could see the volcanoes Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams from a single location. We are delighted with the clear weather.
We didn’t do too well on our animal sightings today. We spotted some vultures, a hawk, an osprey and a partially flattened porcupine on the yellow lines of WA-504. Can’t win ’em all.
Some pictures of this amazing place can be seen by clicking here

Today we decided to go up the Cowlitz River to see Cowlitz Falls. We have never explored this area before so we were stoked.
We started out by heading east up WA-12 to the area around Randal where we turned off to the south. Wandering down to the Cowlitz we did find a terrific park called Cowlitz Falls Day Use Area where we stopped for a great picnic alongside the river.
After lunch we continued our search for Cowlitz Falls but we were unsuccessful. Many roads were traveled but the Falls remained elusive. After considerable wandering, we drove down to a dam and found a nice interpretive sign at the very end of the road. The sign indicated that the dam, which was built in the last century, had been built on the former location of Cowlitz Falls and the Falls really do not exist anymore. The dam had all the gates closed: they were not even letting any water out so it was pretty unimpressive.
The drives today were superb, passing through gorgeous country but we can’t explain why Cowlitz Falls is not called Cowlitz NoFalls or Even Water.
See the pictures by clicking here

Today we were slugs all day, partly due to rain in the morning. Maybe the rain will knock down the smoke that has filled regional skies for the last 10 days or so and perhaps the embattled firefighters in eastern Washington will get a break. We hung around the trailer all day watching movies. I dumped the tanks. We were boring and loved every minute.

After our long drive through spectacular scenery yesterday, we chose to stay a bit closer to camp today. But, as we were performing our morning ritual of coffee and breakfast, our long-suffering coffee maker gasped its last and refused to function. Two years of servitude at our house and then three plus years on the road with us and the old Black & Decker crapped out. They just don’t make a good $19 coffee maker anymore.
We were able to overcome the temporary inconvenience but by afternoon, we were on the way to the Centralia Outlets to find a store called Kitchen Wossname and we now possess a $25 Mr. Coffee in white. Peggy also coerced me into going to a DXL store where garments for tall, lardass types can be found. Peggy’s intent was to find some cotton shorts for me but found only a few T-shirts for her uncooperative and recalcitrant husband. Tragic, eh?
Our timing was good because, after the dreadful clothes shopping, we wandered over to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum and purchased tickets for a ride on the old steam locomotive powered tourist train. We settled into some seats on the outward-facing wooden benches installed in a long hopper car for the ride to our destination, the whereabouts of which were a bit hazy.
The ride, which costs $17 a head, is a slow trip through some beautiful agricultural land with views that are not available from any road. The tracks pass through heavily wooded corridors of forest and pasture alongside the Chehalis River which, strangely, flows east. It must dump into the Cowlitz before making its way south to the Columbia and the Pacific. I am remarkably ignorant about the local area geography despite spending ample time in this locale.
Our engineer for the trip was a fervent steam whistle blower and it is plainly evident why after hearing it. It was not only terrifyingly loud but also shot out an amazingly impressive cloud of steam which would blast leaves off the branches of the overhanging shade trees. I am sure everyone in the county was aware the train was moving.
Our 5:00 PM train was also a dinner train and, if you paid $50 for the ride, you could have a fancy crystal and white linen dinner served to you in the attached dining car. We did not choose that option so I can’t comment on the food. I took a train ride from San Diego to Eugene, Oregon, a few years ago and I can say for a fact that Amtrak’s food is terrible. The dining car on today’s train was full so I guess the food must be better.
After a couple hours we rolled back into the station in Chehalis and took the 30 mile ride back home to Paradise. The smoke from the fires that have plagued us for the last two weeks is clearing and both Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens were clearly visible. They are very substantial and absolutely gorgeous.
There’s pix. Click here

Today we started to get a bit antsy about waiting for the horrible smoke from eastern state fires to clear. The fires east of us continue to emit gigantic smog clouds that have obscured most of western Washington. We have considerable sympathy for the dedicated public servants and maybe prisoners that are enduring hot weather, unfavorable winds and crippling heat battling dreadful fires in eastern WA and BC.
We decided to ignore the possibilities of crummy visibility and head east to cross the southern slope of Mount Rainier. We started on WA-12 right near our campground and almost immediately commenced the slow climb into the Cascades. We shot by Mossyrock, Morton, Randle and Packwood before turning off on WA-123 into Mount Rainier National Park. In Packwood, we found a tall roadside woodcarving of someone who appeared to be Jesus toting a double-bitted ax. A few miles up 123 and we turned west on WA-706 toward Paradise and Longmire, two communities on the massive south slope.
We switchbacked up Stevens Ridge until we came around a corner at about 5000 feet elevation and Rainier came into view. The road from Stevens Ridge toward Rainier is bordered by absolutely stunning scenery with luscious vistas, many creeks and rivers, glaciers and gigantic volcanic formations. Mount Rainier, a volcano, makes the rest of the surrounding Cascade Mountains look like poorly nourished runts, albeit gorgeous. 14,411 foot tall Rainier is the big kingpin of volcanoes around this state which also boasts having Mount Baker, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens which blew 1300 feet off its head on May 18, 1980 in a spectacular demonstration of how puny man is. Rainier has not erupted since 1894 but the violence from the last blast is evident and the terrain is still being altered by glaciation, ice, and both water and wind erosion. Evidence of massive, rock-filled lahars can be easily spotted in the Nisqually River Valley near Paradise.
At Paradise, we pulled off the road for a picnic and few places could be more dramatic than this place for cheap dining. We sat with a large raven ogling our lunch and an amazing view of Rainier. All along the south slope, waterfalls gurgle and thunder away and evidence of violent geological change is plainly evident. Huge ravines full of giant boulders show where the snowmelt livens things up after each year’s thaw. Rivers in this area wander along in 100 foot or more deep crevices carved through solid rock. The forests dotted across the slope have never been logged and they are truly beautiful to explore. The earth is definitely open for business on the slopes of Mount Rainier.
It is unlikely we could have picked a better place to explore today on our 38th wedding anniversary. The smoke from the fires still lingers in this region but it would take a lot more haze to obscure the fantastic sights in the national park. This is certainly another bucket list drive. here
We took a few pictures along the way and you can see ’em if you click here

Today we took a cruise down the Cowlitz River. We took the roads that we figured would keep us closest to the river’s northern edge and we were pretty successful. The drives down Washington’s rivers draining the Cascades have been universally spectacular.
Eventually we crossed I-5 going west and arrived in the small town of Winlock. Winlock looks like it was a manufacturing powerhouse back in the old days but it appears to be pretty placid now with gorgeous old residences surrounding a cute main one-way street. Strangely, many folks in Winlock feel compelled to have oversize fiberglass chickens installed throughout the downtown area. Of course, with that many chickens around they felt they should also have an egg so, after almost no searching, we found a massive fiberglass ovoid item atop a pipe column with an interpretive sign beneath it indicating it was the “World’s Largest Egg” despite the resin and silicate construction. I suppose it could be the world’s largest egg-shaped facsimile of an egg but I am not so sure about it being an egg or functional. Perhaps they have lots of chickens and egg production in Winlock but we sure didn’t smell any.
Chicken pictures here