Olympic & Mount Rainier National Park, Washington

Hello family and friends it is your friendly neighborhood blogger with an amazing sense of humor… Dom. I know I know. We take forever to get the blog posts out. I apologize for the inconvenience but no need to worry… we’re back baby! 

Our adventures took us West into Washington and got to experience, what felt like, the entire state! We had the privilege to be hosted by Audrey’s Aunt Ivonna, Uncle Steve, and Cousin Taylor. The very first night we showed up we were greeted by two pups: Coco (a sweet granny dachshund) and Parker (a pup who growls for attention? a little confusing for us when we don't know if he's a nice pup or not at first, haha!). Our hosts led a short walk to show us their beach view of Mt. Rainer and the surrounding area called The Sound.

The next day was one dedicated to Aunt Ivonna's favorite natural feature…waterfalls! She took us to two gorgeous waterfalls and we visited two famous trolls. There is a guy named Thomas Dambo who creates sculptures around the world out of recycled materials. So these trolls were some majestical creatures that looked like something out of a Bridge to Terabithia movie (sorry older viewers, that is a 2000s baby reference). One was a very friendly-looking one with a ponytail, while the other looked like it was going to wreak havoc within Seattle. We ended the night with some drinks, delicious pizza (with pineapple obviously), and a pint of ice cream!

The next day we traveled to Olympic National Park. For those who don’t know, this park is one of the most (maybe THE most) versatile parks in the nation. It has rainforests, beaches, and mountains. So obviously the only logical thing would be to go see a rainforest!! Aunt Ivonna already had that written in the playbook though, and much more! We set off to the Quinault Rain Forest first. Feeling adventurous, we scaled down to a creek bed for scenic photos. To secure the money shot, Uncle Steve took a tumble but was able to walk away from it in one piece. Next was the Tree of Life, which is a conservation project to save a cool-looking tree that is almost hanging completely in the air between two cliff edges on the Washington coast. After that, we headed to the famous Ruby Beach which was stunning. Here we had to do a water crossing to get close enough to take a dope picture of the huge boulder-type islands about 100 meters off the shore. Taylor meditated, while the rest of us watched a woman flying a colorful kite and quite literally running around laughing to herself for a good 20 minutes. I guess she was high on life hehe. Then, we capped off the day by seeing the World's Largest Spruce Tree, which as the name implies, was f*ing massive. 

For Day 3, Audrey, Taylor, and I decided to hike the famous Skyline Trail at Mt. Rainier National Park, which gave us beautiful up-close views of Mt. Rainer's peak and expansive views over Washington and into Oregon. Pretty much the entire trail was covered in snow and was pretty difficult to traverse. Once a little over halfway the trail seemingly disappeared in the snow so... like the absolute gangsters we are... we decided it was a better idea to slide on our butts down the mountain and accept the bone-chilling butt freezes as a right of passage while hiking Mt. Rainier. This tactic shaved off an entire walking mile from our hike! Although dangerous and the permanent frostbite on our a**es, it was awesomesauce. 

And there it is folks! Special thanks to those who hosted us during this adventure. Shoutout to Aunt Ivonna for the best-tasting cookies (sorry Audrey)! On to the next adventure! 

Audrey's Life Tip: WEAR SUNSCREEN IN THE SNOW.

Oh my god did we absolutely FRY. Taylor earned a knarly farmers tan, Dom's ears got burnt, and I burned so bad to the point of developing a huge water blister on my chin. It took me about a week to recover. 

Remember our first White Sands post? I wrote "Audrey: 1 Sunburn: 0" back in May. Unfortunatly I think Sunburn earned a clean sweep over the summer based off this one hike...