I can't remember when (if ever) Laurie & I did a camping trip with just us. We tried out our new "condo" tent with our queen-sized air mattress. We didn't have enough air in the mattress the first night - it brought back (bad) memories of water beds - when one of us rolled towards the middle, the other rolled there too! We also learned you must have some insulation either under or on top of the air mattress; the air inside gets cold! On night two, we got the air pressure right and had a blanket under the sheet - perfect!
For the first time in our camping experience, we stayed in bed until about 9 the next morning. It occurred to us the reason we have always been up at the crack of dawn is because the ground was so darn hard! Laying there on a comfy mattress with real pillows under our heads & a down comforter on top of us - as a camper, I should be embarrassed at such luxury - sorry, it felt too good to be embarrassed.On day two, I did a 62-mile bike ride, riding from Ohanapecosh Campground to Packwood (11 miles), then from Packwood to Cayuse Pass (24 miles - 3 hours!), then down to the Crystal Mtn Ski Area road (8 miles), then 6 miles up to the ski area, then back to Cayuse Pass. It was good practice for RAMROD. It was also probably the reason I slept so well on night two.
On day three (Friday), we drove to the west side of Rainier Natl Park. After 
waiting in a line of cars about 2 miles long to get in, we drove up to Paradise, where the parking lot was full. We really didn't want to hike around with a thousand or so people, so we drove back down the road to the trailhead for Comet Falls. We hiked up - and up - and up the trail - beautiful flowers along the way (avalanche lilies in photo to the right).When we finally reached the falls, we needed to cool off a little - Laurie/Gran decided to soak her head in the COLD mountain water! The falls were beautiful - well worth the hike. We will do it again some day.
And, of course, the reason for visiting Rainier National Park - the Mountain!
