Seattle - Part III

On Saturday we decided to get away from the city activities and we drove towards Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately, we chose to do this on the first day of our trip that Mt. Rainier was not visible. As we drove through one of the 5,397 Starbucks in Seattle, the friendliest drive through worker I have ever met asked us where we were going. We told her we were driving to Mt. Rainier where she said, "Oh, are the passes open already". As we drove away we said "passes, what passes is she referring to?"

We headed to Crystal Mountain where we had intended to take this gondola to the top to see the "World's Most Spectacular View of Mt. Rainier" However, given that the visibility was ZERO, we decided not to make the trip since it was quite pricey.

It turned out the Ms. Friendly Starbucks was right and this was as far as we could go. The road right after the Crystal Mountain turn-off that went into Mt. Rainier National Park was closed for winter. The passes on the south side were open but we were on the north side for the gondola ride.

We still enjoyed our time playing in the show and watching all the skiers and snowboarders

Trent with his snowman.

Next we drove around Mt. Rainier National Park to go to the Northwest Trek Wildlife Preserve. This was my favorite spot of our entire vacation. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The exhibits were very well maintained and the animals were so active and accessible.

All of the animals in the preserve have been injured or needed some type of rehabilitation so they were brought to the preserve to live.

They had a great children's exhibit where we made a bear paw.

They have the grazing animals in an open section where we took a tour bus around to view them. We were the first tour in many weeks that got to see every species that they have there. This included caribou, moose, mountain goats, elk, bison and many others.

The animals of prey were in exhibits with a walking path. These included bears, cats, wolves, coyotes, owls, and many others. This picture is a bit blurry because it was taken shortly after we allowed Trent to drink some type of red juice like concoction from a monkey shaped bottle. I am not sure exactly what was in it but I assume it was pure sugar because shortly after he went completely crazy acting like a lunatic. He was quite entertaining but we were considering seeing if they might put him in an exhibit.

This guy was by far my favorite. He was definitely on the prowl and we found ourselves checking the facts on the exhibit very closely to see if it would be possible for him to jump over the moat to our side of the fence. He had a look in his eye that he was considering it.

Yep, still on the high from his monkey drink! He was actually jumping up and down as we took this picture.