Or maybe you can. But you’re going to have to drive though some doggone hot territory on the way. The high temperature in California on our way north was 114 degrees. A thermometer display on a building claimed that the temperature at the time was 122 degrees, but I feel that it was obviously wrong. Although I’m not exactly an expert on triple degree temperatures, so all I’ll say is that it wasn’t paradise.

In other travel news, we parked on the freeway for over an hour and a half near Cottage Grove, Oregon. On the bright side, I think that the surroundings were much nicer than what I would experience if the freeway were to be closed back home. Then in Portland, thank goodness that they posted an announcement of an accident on an electronic billboard. It was an, “Oh not again!” moment, but on the very bright side we were able to detour so we only had to go about five miles out of our way.

But we’re in Washington, so nothing else really matters. It turned out to be a bit of a warmup day. We started out with a short walk from our motel to Yashiro Japanese Garden. No one is going to mistake this for the Portland Japanese Garden, but still it was nice to have a little park so close by.

I can imagine what the falls at Tumwater used to look like. Since the Olympia Brewery closed the area has been taken over by someone else. I wish I could report who is taking care of the area, but to tell you the truth I didn’t pay any attention. No matter. The damage has already been done. Well I suppose that the fish ladders aren’t considered to be damage, but they detract from the scenic quality of the waterfalls. However, this is still a nice little park.

We hiked part of the Cougar Mountain area. Redtown Meadow is considerably smaller than I had expected. Most of the walk was actually shaded. It was raining caterpillars. I wonder what kind of butterflies they will become. It must be spectacular if they all make it to adulthood. We skipped going to Coal Creek Falls since Coal Creek was hardly flowing. Actually farther downstream the creek bed was dry.

Snoqualmie Falls park has changed quite a bit since the last time we were there. Puget Sound Energy has been busy beautifying the upper viewing areas with new platforms, landscaping, park space, and assorted other amenities. It looks quite a bit different from our previous visit. The important detail is that there is much more room to set up a tripod and not be a hog. There was a lot more water in the river this time, although not as much as I’ve seen in some photographs.

I went looking for another waterfall in the vicinity, but did not see a good vantage, so I didn’t end up taking any pictures. Actually I didn’t even take my camera since I was just scouting.

I didn’t get many pictures or certainly not many keepers today. Tomorrow we’ll start looking at some other places, and maybe I’ll do a little better. Of course that’s relative since it was pretty darn nice spending the day up here.