We left late in the morning with Carl and Judy to head toward Mt. Rainier and Northwest Trek. (Northwest Trek is a wilderness park with all manner of native beasts.) The drive down was long long long. Anything with Highway 18 is always slow, but add in highways 169, 512, and whatever else and it stacks up. Ugh.

When we finally got there we found even the parking lot really nice. They're heavily wooded and divided up into small lots so there's no massive lot of hot gravel. We took it as a good sign when we saw a large moose sculpture at the gate and only a smattering of people inside.

Most of the park is wide open. We took the tram to get a tour and saw all the usual including bison (tatanka), elk (no, not "horsey"), and fish (of the Pepperidge variety). We didn't see moose, of course, because that's what we were really dying to see.

After we got off the tram we wandered around the areas with the predators and saw the bears, coyotes, and such that would eat everybody else if they had a chance. Clara started really getting into it just as it was about time to go. We did our best to scare it out of her by exposing her to all the pelts in the Cheney Discovery Center, but that kept reminding her of Tokul which might be a bad thing.

Once the air condition was back on we headed north, found ice cream, and zipped into Enumclaw for a little fireworks scouting with Carl. (He's running a show on the Fourth.)

Back at home we started ribs for dinner, but got distracted by a video conference with Martin, Nicole, and Molly. Carl and Judy were thrilled and continued talking about how much they want to set it up at their house. With any luck it'll be all there by next Father's Day.