Wild Times in Washington State!

 

 Finally...the countdown was over! The 7 months of working 2 jobs was over and we had enough saved to go on our epic west coast adventure! So on the 2nd July we set off very early to the bus depot in Vancouver and hopped a bus across the border down to Seattle. We caught a train to the airport where we picked up our extortionately priced hire car - thank you very much 3 different sales taxes we weren't told about at the time of making the booking! and found the nearest Wal Mart and filled our car to the brim with camping chairs, coolboxes, groceries and enough s'mores making supplies to keep us stocked for the whole 3 week trip!

I've got to be honest...Washington was not really somewhere I was wildly excited about seeing...it was more a means to an end! It was en route to California! but oh man, Washington is just super beautiful everywhere you look!

 Even the roads have beautiful names!!

Our first destination was Mount Rainier. I loved catching the first glimpse of it as we drove!

 It was way bigger than I expected it to be! and so crazy that it was covered in snow at the top, yet was so hot and sunny down below!

We asked a rather grumpy photographer who was trying to capture the view to snap this one of the two of us! I was glad we did as it's one of my fave from the whole trip...that view just seems unreal looking back now!

We went to check out this awesome waterfall! 

By went down to take a closer look, the spray from the waterfall was insane! and I could see he was getting soaking wet! So I decided I'd stay on drier ground...but when he told me he could see a whole rainbow down there I had to go investigate!

 and look what I found! a whole rainbow that fit over my head! Amazing! It was certainly worth getting my hair wet for!

We then hiked up a snowy mountain which was pretty surreal! 

We were still in our shorts and t-shirts believe it or not! 

We found our reserved spot at the campsite and pitched our little tent...

 and got down to some serious s'more making with this awesome contraption we found at Wal mart!

 The next day we set out super early to go to Mount St. Helen's...

 

which I was suuuper excited about! Ever since my days of GCSE geography I have had a secret love for volcanoes and I remember being so interested in the case study of Mount St.Helen's because it was such a HUGE eruption that no one was really expecting! We listened to a great little talk all about it at the Mount St. Helen's visitor centre where the park ranger told us everyone grew up in that area of America being told that the Cascades were extinct volcanoes, that had erupted hundreds of years ago and would never erupt again, and so it genuinely did take everyone by surprise when one day in 1980 they started showing some activity again! It is really quite miraculous that only 6 people died, and the people who did were all inside the danger zone and they had been told to leave but simply ignored instructions so they left their fate to the volcano! 

 There she is in all her glory! Sadly, we had a computer malfunction and when transferring our whole photo library between two laptops we managed to lose a whole entire day of pics! which happened to be all our other Mount St. Helen's pics :( sad times

So we did have an awesome picture of all the blown down trees - over 30 years later and the environment is still struggling to recover! but you'll just have to imagine how crazy they looked!! but have you checked the amazing blue sky in the background of all these pics? It was a scorching hot day! and actually, much to our surprise, we experienced the best and warmest weather in Washington...even better than California - who knew! Especially since it's the Evergreen State and is know for it's rain to keep it so green and luscious!

Washington...you were amazing!

Next stop...Oregon!