Thurday afternoon we left Ensign Ranch and drove to Seattle. We stopped at the Space Needle and went all the way to the top.
Mt. Rainier
Our car down in the parking lot :)
Eliza liked the spiders on the building.
We watched a plane land on the water.
Mt. Rainier
There is a tiny restaurant up on top. We got clam chowder in a bread bowl and we were pleasantly surprised at how yummy and affordable it was.
That night we stayed with my brother Joe last minute. We had hoped to get further than his house so it was very last minute. Sorry Joe. That night I felt Addie and she felt warm to me. I put her to bed and for the first time the whole trip she woke up a few times. She was warm with fever. Ick. I gave her ibuprofen and she seemed comfortable enough to sleep a bit more.
The next morning (Friday) we ate breakfast and got back on the road. We decided Mt. Rainier would be a necessary detour. Addie was fine, a little feverish but she just slept in the car the whole way.
Mt. Rainier was AMAZING! The most beautiful place I have ever seen with my own eyes. Sorry Yosemite, Redwoods, Oregon Coast, Columbia River Gorge, Catalinas...Mt. Rainier was picture perfect beautiful and we couldn't even see the peak through the clouds.
We only had time to walk around a little. I would love to go back and spend a few days there hiking the trails. We saw a deer within a few minutes of walking along one of the trails.
The kids kept pointing out all the Christmas trees.
And there were so many wild flowers.
Mt. Rainier is almost peaking out from behind the clouds. The waterfall was beautiful.
It was hard to capture the beauty in pictures. I loved the buildings. It looked like Switzerland (from what I have seen in pictures).
Just as we were leaving the clouds were blowing off and almost revealed the peak.
We got back on the road and made it to Salem, Oregon and encountered some very friendly Oregonians. That night Addie's fever spiked again, medicine brought it down and she slept most of the night. We woke up Saturday morning and decided we had seen it all and had had it with being on the road. We wanted to be home. Addie was not feeling well and we were just tired from the whole trip. It had been so fun and now this journey home seemed so daunting. We decided we could do 15.5 hours that day and make it home by 2am. I have no more pictures to share. We got in the car and didn't stop driving until we saw that we were almost out of gas in the middle of nowhere Oregon. Our car said we had 8 miles to empty and the nearest gas station was 6 miles away (4 miles off the freeway :[ ). We drove and that gas station was closed (no one to pump your gas for you) so we kept driving...another 2 miles to the next gas station. The car said 0 miles to empty and we kept going, riding on prayers and fumes. We made it to the next gas station and filled up. Whew. Too close for comfort. I gave Cody a good "how could you not see we were out of gas" look and then a "we just lost 30 minutes of travel time" look.
We kept on driving and Addie slept most of the way. She didn't feel warm so that was good. She woke up somewhere in the dust bowl of northern California and I smelled poop. I told Cody we should pull over. I looked back at her and she had brown stuff on her hands and on her face. I looked at her leg and poop was oozing out of her diaper all over her leg and car seat. I screamed and Cody jerked awake and then pulled over at an exit. We took her out of the car seat and cleaned her up the best we could with about 50 wipes. I shook poop off her clothes and the sweater she was sitting on (because the poor thing had already had 3 blowouts) and it plopped in the dirt like a cow pattie. Too descriptive?? Well now you have lived it with me and you didn't have to actually do it. Poor baby. We cleaned her up and changed her clothes and laid down a blanket in case it happened again. And then got back in the car and kept driving.
We made it to almost Bakersfield (6 hours from home) and Addie slept a little but then would wake up and cry. She was over it! We really wanted to keep going because staying in hotels is so expensive and we were in no mood to set up a tent in 90 degree weather at 10 pm. She didn't feel hot but was just tired and couldn't sleep in the car seat. We pulled over at an exit in the middle of nowhere and got a hotel room. Everyone was beat. We were crazy to even think 15.5 hours in a day was a good idea.
Everyone slept well and we woke up Sunday morning ready to get home. The hotel had a great breakfast, the best one yet! Everyone chowed down, especially Addie who was feeling so much better. We found a church on the route home and stopped in for a bit and then kept going and made it home late afternoon. We were glad to be home! It was a trip to remember.
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