Washington State Parks and Canadian Border

June 24^th-27^th

Washington is a state I wish I had more time to explore. Sadly, I had to make the hard choice of staying in Washington a week or moving up into Canada. Keith pushed for Canada, because he had never been. Because of this, we only had 3 nights in Washington, which meant we had to make some really hard decisions on what do while there.

Thankfully, we had one outstanding weather day which we devoted to Mount Rainier. It is a rare thing for the mountain to be visible at the peak, so having one of our days where it was clearly visible with excellent weather was a total win. Honestly, this might end up the highlight of the trip, because I really did not expect to arrive and see anything other than cloudy skies. June is early for such beautiful weather in the Pacific Northwest.

Narada Falls in Mt Rainier National Park

With one day dedicated to Rainer, we only had one other full day in the state. The decision was either to brave Seattle traffic or pack up and move north to North Cascades National Park for a quick viewing. After spending the evening with a close friend the night before who told us to expect a couple hours to and from Seattle, plus not taking Cody with us, we grudgingly decided to move on without seeing the city. Sleeping in, going out to breakfast, picking up a few things from the base exchange was how we spent an leisurely morning before packing up and moving north to Rasar State Park near North Cascades National Park. The state park was well equipped, roomy, and not to big. We spent the somewhat rainy evening exploring the park, the nearby river, and playing Exploding Kittens with the kids. It ended up raining all night, but mostly stopped by the time we headed into the park the next morning. This was the first real rain we have experienced on the trip. I couldn’t believe we made it a month with no rain.

I do wish we would have had more time to explore North Cascades National Park. We barely scratched the surface with our stop at the visitor center, a quick view of a few waterfalls, and the iconic green lake. We never made it over to the really spectacular mountains, but with all the cloud cover there was no way to view more than their base anyway. This park is best viewed later in the season. Still, the kids gained the cancellation stamp for their National Park Passport Book, so it was still worth the side trip.

After visiting Cascades, we drove quickly back to camp, packed up, and headed up to Canada! Crossing the border was smooth, and in typical Canadian style the border guard wished us a great trip and told us to really enjoy visiting her country. We’ve arrived at our campground and I backed our trailer into a tiny spot at a difficult angle like a BOSS. Girl Power!! Backing is not Keith’s strong point. He likes to drive, but when it comes to backing we agreed this trip it would be all on me. We all have different gifts and using them to our advantage is how couples stay happily married, especially while living in a tiny trailer with two kids and a dog. I can tell you already, this park will NOT be our favorite. Buraby Cariboo RV Park is tight, not dog friendly, and with limited kid activities. However, the choices were very limited to be within a reasonable drive of Vancouver for a few days. We will survive!