Mt Rainier and Damon Point, July 5-8, 2021

 Monday, July 5, 2021

11524 miles parked at home start of trip to Mt Rainier and Ocean City state park.  Ben, Janet, John, Price and John's roommate Daniel in RV.  Drove straight to Lacey Costco aside from a brief pit stop at the Smokey Point rest stop.  Arrived Lacey Costco at 4:37pm.  Filled up with 11.404 gal @$3.299/gal.  11675 miles on odometer. 15.4 mpg since last fill up.  Met Jack and Sharon at Casa Ramos in Centralia at 6pm for dinner, then drove to their Onalaska home. 11727 miles on odometer.  Parked in front of house, backed towards the garage with cargo carrier near front house door.  Used 3 layers of leveler blocks under rear wheels and 5 under each stabilizer jack, but still moderately sloped.  John, Price and Daniel slept in Fort Twins with folding cots and Price’s hammock.  Retired at 10:30pm.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

11727 miles on odometer at Jack City.  Left at 7:30am.  Tupperware with watermelon fell out of the refrigerator and spilled some watermelon on the floor in Morton.  Cleaned up the mess. Arrived Mt Rainier Park entrance at 9am.  2 lanes with 3-4 cars in line.  Stopped at Longmire to inquire about Carter falls trail condition- bridge is washed out and the upper part of the trail is 50% snow covered. Left Longmire 9:12am. Drove up to Paradise to find the main parking lot just filled, lower parking lot about 80% filled.  We were able to park there, which was closer to the NIsqually Vista trail head.  Hiked NIsqually Vista Trail- had ~15% snow coverage.  Then hiked to Myrtle Falls. 

JPD hiked a bit further on the Skyline trail until it became snowbound.  Drove down from Paradise to the first large viewpoint of Mt. Rainier and had lunch there.  Ran the slide out and had sandwiches, potato salad, potato chips and watermelon. 

Drove to reflection lakes and walked the trail which was 20% snow covered, but we were able to get a reflection picture.

Drove down to Narada Falls and hiked to the lower view point and back.  Then did the scenic loop drive and then pulled into Cougar rock campground Site B024 around 2pm.  11813 miles on odometer.  Dry campsite.  Shady.  This site had a small pull through but suitable for our RV.  There was just enough room between the RV and picnic table that a small tent could be set up.  We had set the patio carpet out along with the folding table and outdoor grill to cook dinner on.  The portable grill does not work very well as a conventional burner- it took a long time to reheat the Birdseye skillet meal.  In the future, we should pack the LLBean campstove and disposable canisters for conventional outdoor cooking. Ben had misplaced his keys when they slid off the top of the cargo carrier bag into a bucket used to carry plant starts to Sharon.  John discovered them, saving us from making a drive back to Narada Falls to search in vain for them.  JPD hiked to the Carter Falls trailhead and hiked to the downed footbridge, about a half mile in.  Birds Eye skillet dinner (noodles with mixed veggies and garlic chicken, toasted bagels with Boursin’s, grapes and ice cream with crumbled cookies. Price slept on self inflating pad in front of dinette, but the pad did not inflate much.  Next time, he’ll try the folding cot.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

11813 miles on odometer Cougar Rock campground.   Breakfast sausage patty, egg omelet and pepper jack cheese bagel sandwiches with grapes.  Sausage patties had been pre-cooked at home in oven so they only needed to be reheated.  These were reheated in the covered 12” skillet with a little water on the LP burner.  The generator was run after 9am to toast the bagels first in convection oven and then finished in the toaster.  Ben, John and Dan all had coffee using the Keurig mini on the generator.  Generator hrs 14.2 at beginning, 14.5hrs at stop.  

Drove to Longmire where we did the Trail of the Giants loop, then drove to Yelm where we refueled at a Shell station.  11867 miles on odometer. 13.6 gal @$3.49/gal with Shell app. 14.1 mpg since last fill up.  Passed the NIsqually Reservation casino (RedWings Casino) where diesel was only $3.28/gal several miles past Yelm.  Stopped at Lacey Costco to pick up two pizzas for lunch and had lunch in the Costco parking lot with pizza, carrot and celery sticks, although the carrot and celery sticks were partially frozen.  The refrigerator was set at 4 with a temperature reading of 37.8˚ F with the sender on the door.  Temp sender moved to one of the drawers at the bottom and the refrigerator was set to 3.  We ran the slide out at Costco to have lunch, but after lunch I was unable to get the slide to run back in.  We checked the fuses and looked for a reset on the slide room controller but found nothing to reset.  John then suggested checking the parking brake running through the manual’s check list, and that was the issue.  The parking brake was not completely set.  Once that was done, we were able to run the slide in.

Arrived at Ocean City State Park around 4:30pm.  Placed site occupied signs on site 139, then drove to Damon Point to walk the beach.  Found a few small agates.  Dan found two nice specimens he’ll give to his sister.  Drove to Ocean Shores beach access, which had been paved with gravel, and was nice and solid.  Had dinner on the beach with chili chees dogs using costco dogs, Cattle drive chili, and Kirkland sandwich rolls and shredded cheddar.  Also had Kirkland tortilla chips and leftover pizza.  Ran generator to cook with induction for initially boiling the hot dogs while heating chili on LP, then toasting sandwich rolls with shredded cheese in the convection oven.  Generator 15.0 hrs at stop.

Returned to Ocean City State Park and set up camp, hooking up water, sewer and electricity.  11978 miles on odometer. Discovered inadequate cell signal to stream anything on the TV.  Discovered Ben was unable to stream Totoro or Spirited Away from his iPad because the iPlug app doesn’t support Airplay. Everyone showered.  Gray water 2/3, Black 1/3.  

Thursday, July 8, 2021

11987 miles on odometer.  Broke camp after flushing and draining the tanks, topping off fresh water, and drove to Aberdeen to photograph the “Aberdeen-Come As You Are” sign- a tribute to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who had lived in Aberdeen.  John and Daniel had learned this during their visit to the Museum of Popular History. 

Refueled at Lacey Costco at 1:26 pm @12061 miles on odometer.  12.538 gal to fill @ $3.299.  15.5mpg since last fill up. Stopped at WA Capitol building- Ben parked on a nearby street and made sandwiches for lunch while everyone else self toured the Capitol building. 

Drove to the Seattle waterfront and dropped John, Price and Daniel off at Pioneer Square.  Janet and Ben napped in the RV near the Starbucks corporate headquarters in 2hr parking zone.  Picked up the kids at the Aquarium and then dropped them off at the Ballard Locks. 

Ben parked in a nearby neighborhood, and circled back to pick everyone up after touring the locks.  Drove to Chiang’s and met Ciara there for dinner.  

Refueled at Swinomish Chevron 12200 miles, 8:20pm, 9.714 gals to fill @ $3.339/gal.  14.3mpg since last fill.  Traffic was heavy from Tacoma to Seattle. Arrived home around 9:30pm as the sun was setting.  12224 miles on odometer.