At the End of our Stay in Seattle

Hey, everyone. It's Monday, and we've visited three national parks in Washington so far, all of them the same distance from our campground near Seattle. We've seen the snow-capped splendor of Mount Rainier, the beautiful river valleys of the North Cascades, and the lush forests of the Olympic Mountains. Overall, it's been a wonderful stay here in Washington, and the five-day visit of one of my dad's closest (and funniest) friends, Tommy, only made it better. Four days ago, he arrived in SEATAC airport from Anchorage, Alaska at 10:50 p.m. The next day, even though he was slightly jet-lagged, we drove to Mt. Rainier, the highest landmass in the state of Washington. The top of the mountain was completely COVERED in snow and ice. It's so interesting to see snow in the middle of July, when you consider North Carolina's 100-degree summers. Anyway, we all really enjoyed that day, although we were somewhat hindered by the traffic jams on the freeway back to the campground. The next day, a Saturday, was a lazy day for all of us. We hung around, got groceries, and watched the movie "Invictus." It's very good - I recommend it to all of you. Finally, yesterday we went to North Cascades National Park. Despite the fact that we never really made it all the way to the higher peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range, we all enjoyed ourselves. However, since we had a truck with five seats (and every one occcupied by somebody), we were a little bit tired of the dog, Scout, stealing our seats and squirming around looking for a more comfortable place to settle. Anyway, today is our last day, and since we've seen all the parks around here, we're taking the day off as another lazy day. I hope you guys are all following attentively - we have a lot more adventures to come on the way back! This is Spencer Paige, signing off.