NP #9 Rainier August 9, 2014

Day 1: August 9, 2014:  Today we left Dallas at 11:00am and flew to Seattle.  The plane trip was the least adventurous one we’ve had yet since having kids, which is a very good thing.  We arrived in Seattle at 1:00pm Seattle time, picked up our white Dodge Caravan minivan and headed south towards Mt. Rainier National Park.

We got stuck in a small traffic jam in Tacoma due to a pretty bad wreck, then we stopped at an Albertsons in Spanaway, Washington and bought some breakfast/lunch groceries and a Styrofoam ice chest.

We pulled into the Gateway Inn around 5:00pm and checked into log cabin #4. Besides being very dark, it was the perfect room for this trip.  

 If you walked to the edge of the parking lot, the Nisqually entrance to Mt. Rainier was literally 50 yards or so from our Inn.  We unpacked our luggage and groceries then walked over to the restaurant that is part of the “main lobby”, mini-mart and souvenir shop.  The kids split a chicken strip dinner, I got chicken teriyaki (the owners are some sort of Asian) and Nick got fried fish and shrimp.  The food was all decent but not worth going back to.  

We walked back to the room around 6:30 or so and were literally asleep by 7:30 (the room had 3 double beds and night 1, Nick and Grant slept together in one bed, Ryan slept in one and I slept in the one right by the front door.