This blog needs some sunshine, but since the Great Fireball in the Sky has decided to shun Seattle for the time being, I’ll post about warmer, brighter, drier days in the past instead.

My parents tend to visit us during official Norwegian holidays like Christmas and Easter, smack dab in the middle of monsoon season. So when the asked if they could come in early fall, I was excited to show them the Pacific Northwest at its finest. Unlike their previous visits, they got to see Washington in full color instead of grey – and look!! Ginormous volcanoes all around us!

The most ginormoustest of them all, Mount Rainier, couldn’t possibly have provided us with better conditions for our hike to Panorama Point.

It was my first day back on trail since I pulled a muscle in the Enchantments, so I was in full-on giddy mountain mode; my dad got to stalk marmots and deer with his new, fancy camera; my mom was absolutely enthralled by the mountain (see, I told you it’s magic!); and JK kept bursting into evil laughter every time he thought about his coworkers who were stuck in the office. Moahahaa!

My parents turned around at Glacier Vista to mosey on down the meadows and check out the Paradise Visitor Center while JK and I hoofed it up to Pan Point.

This was our first time hiking around Paradise sans snow. Everything looked the same, but somehow…different. At least now I could wear shorts, which is always a plus.

We looped back down to Paradise and found my parents waiting in the waning sunlight, then decided to drive the long way home around the mountain.

– Skyline Trail | 5 miles | 1300 feet elevation gain –

Another highlight of my parents’ visit was our weekend road trip to Portland. There were outdoor markets and big bookstores and good eats, but since I apparently never take photos in urban settings, here are photos from day two, when we went on a waterfall tour and drove out to the coast (wow, that was a lot of commas…and I’m sure none of them were used correctly).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Wellie happier than when he was playing fetch on Cannon Beach. Those little feet were made to run in the sand.

Unfortunately my mom was coming down with the Flu of Doom (it got all of us before the month was over), but I think she enjoyed herself anyway. Not so sure what she thought about the weird little hippie cafe we took them to though. ;^)

Sunset somewhere along the way home. Sometimes you just have to pull over.

After the roaring success of taking JK’s mom to the Space Needle in the summer (hey, I never blogged about that, either. I suck at this!), we hit the jackpot again with a gorgeous sunset dinner. And lavender beer. Mmm.

This was my favorite parental visit yet. Hopefully they’ll come back to visit their grandson (don’t get excited – I’m talking about Wellie!) again soon, and, if we’re lucky, maybe the weather and views will treat us just as well as they did this time around (there I go with the commas again [and with the parentheses]).

Now I think my parents finally understand why we love it here in Washington and why we never want to leave…but that certainly doesn’t mean we don’t miss all of you guys back home.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Family, Hiking, Mount Rainier, Oregon, Visitors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.