Astronomers like to hold conferences in exotic and unusual locales. My husband has been fortunate to have been invited in the past to present his work at one such locale a few years back. This year the special place that he was invited to was Crystal Mountain Ski Resort located within the Mt Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest. The resort is three miles outside Mt. Rainier National Park.
We have a great love for the Pacific Northwest, which developed during the two years that my husband lived in Seattle. This cemented my husband's decision to attend the conference. And I tagged along being even more fond of the Pacific Northwest and Washington state than him!
It was fortunate that we actually reached Seattle this time! We had become so used to going through United's Premier frequent flyer queue at O'Hare that we kept little extra time for error. This was almost our downfall on this trip as we waited for over 20 minutes for a taxi to take us to O'Hare. The lack of taxis in our area was quite unusual given the number that usually ply through our neck of the woods. But let's not dwell any more on that as our taxi driver did get us to the airport with just enough time to spare without driving at break neck speed.
The flight across the continent was without incident. We saw a few forest fires from the air, one of which appeared to be around the Bitterroot mountains of Idaho, while others were to the east of the Cascade Mountains. Mt. Rainier was its magnificent self, dominating the view at 14410 ft high, as we flew past it. It's not often that I've been able to see the Seattle area from the air when arriving in the Emerald City as I've touched down at night or it's been cloudy, so I was savouring the sights. I was even able to identify the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (that traverses Lake Washington as WA 520) from the air.
We were met at the airport by one of our cousins. We spent the night at their place chatting with them and enjoying homemade mango ice-cream. The next day after stocking up on groceries and picking up our rental car, we set out for Crystal Mountain ski resort. There was an accident on I-5 south after the Burien/SEATAC airport exit which delayed us by 30 mins. Then we appeared to go off track near Enumclaw because I was a bit too hasty in taking a turn, but it wasn't too egregious of an error - probably took us 1 mile longer to get to the correct road. We took note of some of the restaurants and shops in Enumclaw in case we felt the need to drive 30 miles to get supplies! This seemed more and more unlikely as we drove further as the road was slow and somewhat mountainous. Views of Mt. Rainier had long disappeared as we neared our destination. It was, nonetheless, a beautiful drive. We were surrounded by the beautiful tall, evergreens of the Mt.Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. I'm pretty sure we had driven this way on our last visit to Mt. Rainier, but none of it seemed at all familiar this time.
After driving for about 2.5 hours we were very happy to see the turn off to Crystal Mountain. The north-east entrance (not my photo) (WA 410 or Mather Memorial Parkway) to the national park was a few yards beyond the turn off, so we were indeed right next to "the Mountain." The 3 mile road to the resort was narrow and windy enough to warrant driving at around 35-40 mph most of the time. We could look into some of the valleys surrounding Crystal Mountain as we drove. At times we could see a sliver of a river, but mostly we saw gorgeous evergreen trees.
Crystal Mountain ski resort actually consists of independently owned units that are rented out, so each unit has a different layout and decor. Ours had a very tiny shower, and some not so great living room furniture. But apart from that it was quite reasonable. We had decided to cook our own food at the resort for a few reasons: (a) I was going to be sightseeing at lunch time and so I wouldn't be eating lunch at the resort, (b) to ensure that Vikram could have ample vegetarian food and (c) to keep costs down.
The weather had been splendid so far, and it continued to be idyllic throughout the trip with nary a cloud in sight. While I'm raving about this, the reality was far from idyllic. There was a fairly high danger for forest fires as there hadn't been rain for several weeks. The grass along I-5 was brown, in complete contrast to the trees. And a few days after we returned back to Chicago, there were 3-4 fires in Mt. Rainier National Park and one of the roads had to be closed as a result.
