OK, and we're back in 3...2...

That is quite enough of that, really. 

That last RV park was something. We have stayed at a lot of RV parks over the years and this one ranks right up there with the worst.  You know, I don't normally bad mouth anyone on here, but if you are ever in Yakima with an RV, do NOT stay Trailer's Inn on 1st Street.  For those of you on my Facebook, remember tazer penis?  He was found OD'ing against the fence of the RV park and two days later was back for a tazered penis.  All of this happened in the vicinity of the RV park.  Each cop, paramedic or ER nurse that heard where we were staying stopped and gave me that look like I just told them I had a vial of ebola in my pocket. 

And that is just the neighborhood around the place.  I won't carry on though.  I will save the full rant for my review on the RV park review website we use.

Instead, how about a quick trip through a few things that happened while we were away. 

Yakima is different.  Way different than the west side of the Cascades.  It is dry, hot and brown.  What little green remains is clustered around the rivers that join together and cascade down through the valley. 

There is industrial agriculture everywhere. 


None of this is what we came to Washington for, so we headed back as soon as we could.  We headed up the road toward Rainier and found a little pretty. 

The dramatic East summit of Fife's peak from the viewpoint.

The dramatic Max.

We decided to take the Chinook Scenic Byway, which leads up to Mt. Ranier National Forest and then circle back down.  The first place we wanted to go was through Chinook Pass.

Chinook Pass

Yakima Peak above Tipsoo Lake.

One of the ideas that has rattled around inside Sarah and my heads has been to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.  It sounds like just the kind of insane adventure we do.  The kids, however, think we are nuts to even think about it. It turns out, the PCT (That's what the cool kids call it) runs right through Chinook Pass.  We had to at least set foot on it.  The boys were opposed.  They may have believed we would just get crazy and take off. 

Neat bridge going over the road. 

Michael just heard me say we were going to hike the trail.

Crazy to think that trail leads all the way to Mexico.

 We left that area and went into Ranier National Park proper.  We were running out of daylight and kid patience so we decided to see the box canyon and then go home.  The box canyon is a narrow canyon around 150 feet deep with a river slicing through.  It was pretty cool to see.

And the river moves fast.

Not sure what the difference between a box canyon and slot canyon is.

The pictures are cool though.

Satisfied there was beauty near enough, we went home heartened.  Then, Ruthie and the kids came down to see us and we had to go back and see all this again, but that is for another post.