Relative Tourist

The second half of last week and all through the weekend I had my maternal and paternal relatives on hand.  It was very nice to see them.  When they were here, the things we did were pretty much tourist.

We met up with my cousin and his wife and made our way to Mt. Rainier National Park.  When you see the pictures below (click on them to make them bigger), you'll notice no pictures of Mt. Rainier proper.  It was cloudy/rainy the day we visited so the mountain was not out.  However, there were sites to be seen.

We pulled into a parking area that was labelled "Grove of the Patriarchs."  It has some big-ass Douglas Firs and other species there.  We picked a short 1.3 mile out and back trail to explore.

The trail was quite wide, not too steep, not too rooty or rocky, and was a nice leg-stretcher for the car-bound lot.

To give you a perspective, the I am over six feet tall and could walk under any portion of the (below) downed tree over the trail.

We came upon this cool pedestrian suspension bridge over a VERY cold snow runoff fed river. The sign at the foot of the bridge suggested one person at a time.  We complied.

The next day we were off to points north of here.  We made a stop at the Naval Underwater Warfare Museum.  There were torpedoes.

Funky flying missile bomb torpedo things.

Diving apparatus of all sorts.

And some deep sea diving vessels of strange proportion and shape.

The theme for the visit was "ride the ferries everywhere."  This was no exception.  We departed Port Townsend for Whidbey Island.  My maternal relative was a Navy kid.  Her paternal relative was a Naval Aviator stationed at Whidbey Island in the early 1950's.  She lived on Whidbey for most of 3rd grade and hadn't been back since they moved to Pensacola, FL.

After adequately viewing the Island we were back on the ferry.  As we were heading from Whidbey back to Port Townsend we saw three of the below cruise ships.  My guess is they were departing from Seattle bound for Alaska.

The below chick and dude rode bikes on the ferry.  She played banjo and he played mandolin.  They were pretty OK and played all during the crossing taking tips in the banjo case.

It was a nice, albeit short, visit by the relatives.  As I type this they are on their way back to the Midwest via Amtrak - their preferred mode of transportation.

This coming weekend I've more Midwesterners visiting.  Friday is my every-other-Friday-off and Monday is a Memorial Day.  A nifty four day weekend!