Insisting That the World Keeps Turning Our Way (part 7)

I am sitting in a very quiet hotel room looking at the cloudy sky outside. Of course we are no longer in the gorgeous sunny pacific northwest, but located instead somewhere in the midwest. It's dreary, and it matches everyone's mood. But with any luck, this is the last time I will be making this drive east for a long time. Or at least that is my hope.

On the other hand, the drive below is one I hope to do a lot more. We drove up to Paradise and continued around the mountain. Talk about gorgeous!! Is there any place more beautiful? I haven't found it yet..

Ring Of Fire

One of the things about the Pacific Northwest, are the mountains. When the mountains are out, the views are spectacular. Several mountains were on display during our trip in all their glory.

Mt St Helens was in all her glory, and still snow covered!

I love this view from the Vancouver WA area

Up north, a wrong turn took us to this spectacular view of Mt Baker.
Definitely better than the Walmart we were hunting for!

Later on a boating day, it peeked over Bellingham Bay while a boat slipped by.

But, my mountain, the world's most perfect mountain, was also out.

Hello my beautiful Mt Rainier. How I miss you when I'm away.
(and yes I know there's a big ol' bug smudge, I'll deal with that later)

I know she's an active volcano. But seriously, if she ever does
blow, I could never bring myself to be in the valley again.

I mean, can you imagine the skyline without her there?

Finally, look closely, on the left, Mt Hood even said hi. No, she's not
Mt Rainier, only one could be so perfect, but she adds a lot of pizazz to Portland.

Here she is again, behind the trees. We didn't go far enough south for a great view.

Let's Go Fly A Kite

We've had kites for the kids for the past 3 years. This time, we had major problems with Devin's kite which had evidently turned to the Dark Side (it's a Star Wars kite) and made it's mission attacking people. When Shawn came down, he decided to go to the kite store, so the kids got new kites, and he did too, buying some huge Blue Angel kite. We obviously ran right to the beach to try them all out.

The new flyable kite

The much more complex 2 person plane kite

Natural flying animals

2 bald eagles enjoying the view!

Gorgeous! I've never seen bald eagles here before,
I'm happy that they are becoming more common.

Finally the plane flight is flying!