(Scott) - The things we worry about. Before leaving Vancouver, I found myself thinking about the future unknowns. Will we find a campsite in Longmire pulling in so late? Will they have a plastic bucket for our food cache? Will we even get a permit to hike the Wonderland Trail (the reason for this trip)? I suppose it is human nature to worry about such thing. It certainly is for people like us, who seem to have a penchant for sweating out some of the tiniest details. But Hark! It all worked out. We left Vancouver right after Rachel finished work, at 2:30 PM, and drove south to Mt. Rainier National Park. We pitched our tent on a dirt road in the National Forest, because it was getting dark and we had not found a good place to camp. This spot was hardly ideal. We were sleeping only twenty feet from the end of a dirt road, our tent in the middle of it, pitched across depressed tire ruts, and there was a trash heap just beyond. But, considering that darkness was falling and we had tried several other likely (free) campsites, all to no avail, we were pretty happy with the dumpsite.

We did drive through "Big Creek" Campground on the way by, on the slim chance that there might be an open campsite. There wasn't, the campground was full. Many campers had started fires and marshmallows could be seen (or at least imagined). We did not even stop to check the price for a night's stay, something that we enjoy doing when we are on the hunt for a free 'stealth' camping site. It makes us feel good to know exactly how much we are saving to stay in the middle of the dirt road, 20 feet from a dump. While we did not check the price at "Big Creek", I did wonder if I had stayed there as a boy travelling on one of the many summer trips we took as a family. I must ask Mom, when we get back, she would remember, or one of her travelogues would have it.

We set the alarm clock for 5:30 AM and went to bed. I slept as I normally do the first night in a tent - crappy. Rachel dozed right off, however, blending into the noise of the forest with her light snores and periodic rustling. We were awakened by gunshots in the middle of the night. Was it six or seven? What a rude and disturbing event. They sounded close! "BANG! BANG! BANG!" in quick succession. Drunken idiots on a Saturday night? Welcome to America, my friend, where the Second Amendment protects the rights of any idiot to own a gun. Our hearts were in our throats, but we eventually settled down again and went back to sleep

At 5:30 AM the alarm went off. We lay in the tent, delaying the inevitable and finally ventured out at 6:00 AM. We quickly packed up the tent and drove to Longmire at 6:30 AM, hoping to be near the front of the line at the Backcountry Office (Hiker's Centre), hoping that it would increase our chances of getting onto the Wonderland Trail. (Again, sweating this detail). Again, HA! We arrived at the office at about 6:55 AM and were surprised to find that we were the only ones there. Not only were we first in line, but we also comprised the only line at 7:30 AM, when the Hiker's Centre officially opened. We had (mistakenly) assumed that the permit process would be similar to that at the Grand Canyon, where each permit is given out on a roll-call basis. Apparently, each National Park handles their permitting differently. (No need to have gotten up so early. Still, I suppose, it is better to be certain.) The ranger opened the doors and let us in at 7:20 AM, ten minutes early. The ranger, (a girl from Massachusetts, who works seasonally and is hoping to one day to be a backcountry ranger) was quite helpful. Our desired itinerary didn't work out, because so many camping sites were already reserved for nights we would have been there. It took a bit of fiddling with the schedule and time consulting the reservation program on their computer, but after about an hour, she was able to put together an 11-night trip for us. We have to wait till tomorrow to start. We have to go counter-clockwise and begin at Sunrise (rather than clockwise beginning at Mowich Lake, as we had planned and as our guidebook "Discovering the Wonders of the Wonderland Trail" recommends). We also have two days with over ten miles of hiking, but hey, we're officially on the trail. They even had an empty plastic bucket for us to store our cached food into, left by a previous hiker. (Hikers caching food must store it rodent-proof containers because field mice get in the office).

All of our previous fretting now evaporated and our itinerary sorted out, we organized our food cache and left it with the ranger (including our stove fuel, a gallon canister half filled with fuel, which they stored in a separate building). Afterwards, we decided to drive out of the National Park for breakfast and gas up the car. We had investigated having breakfast in the Park, but the Lodge restaurant was too expensive. (They wanted $6.00 for cold cereal and fruit). We ended up checking out three different places for breakfast before we finally settled on where to eat. The first place outside the Park wanted $6.99 for bacon and eggs, so we kept driving until we finally stopped at the third-most distant location, which had eggs, hash browns and toast for $4.95 (even at that, we had to go without bacon). We sound like real cheapskates, but when visiting the U.S. with Canadian dollars, we lose 40% of our buying power when we cross the border. It hurts to pay $5 US ($7.50 CDN) for something we can get for $3.50 in Canada.

After breakfast we headed back into the Park and drove to Paradise, where we got out to do a little walk through the alpine meadows. We had magnificent views of Mt. Rainier in the background with alpine meadows covered with color from all of the wild flowers in bloom: Indian Paintbrush, Queen Anne's Lace, Lupines, and many more. The fragrance was so potent that walking along the paths was intoxicating.

The highlight of the day, for me, was an incredible off-chance meeting with an old college buddy and his family. Once again proving just how truly tiny this planet really is. I thought Steve and his wife Jenny were still in Venezuela, on assignment with Chevron Oil Company. Alas, they are on a 3-week holiday, soon to be in route to a new job assignment in Kuwait. They were visiting parents and his sister, his parents recently relocated from California to the northwest. I passed them on the trail, not recognizing faces, but realizing that a voice sounded familiar. I paused as they walked on and then figured, "What the hell." "Excuse me," I called after them, "Is your name Steve?" "Yes," he said. "Steve Haas?" I asked as I walked back towards them. What are the odds? We had a nice, but much too short of a reunion. I'm glad they got to meet my fiancé and visa versa. I hope it's less than six years before our paths cross again.

Rachel and I had talked about going on another, longer hike today, toward Pinnacle Peak. We decided against it because it was already 1:30 PM and we were feeling hot and tired. Aren't we going to be doing enough hiking starting tomorrow?

True to our frugal form, we left the National Park in order to find another free 'stealth' camping spot in the nearby Wenatchee National Forest. We drove over Chinook Pass, and then started a long descent down into the valley. After about five miles we hadn't spotted any prospective side roads. We were beginning to think about turning back and taking highway 410 back into the Park and then north, out of the Park and into the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, when we finally spotted one. We drove along it some distance, until it became too rough to continue by car. To our dismay, the road simply paralleled the highway back up the valley and didn't offer any suitable camping sites. Where the road became very rough, we encountered a couple on horseback. They told us to try another forest road about a quarter-mile further down the highway. They said that it would lead us to a creek and, eventually, a lake. We took their advice and followed the dirt road for some distance. We didn't find the lake, but we did find a great camping spot after a few miles, right beside a picturesque flowing creek. It is beautiful! Sometimes being frugal pays off. It would have cost us $16 US to stay in the Opanapecosh Campground (of course, a reservation six months in advance is needed).

We took a sponge bath in camp, rinsing off with water from the very cold stream. We followed that by cooking up a hot pasta dinner and are now ready for bed. It was a gloriously sunny and warm day today. There were a few clouds in the afternoon, but it is a clear evening sky so far. Will the weather hold? Do I want it to? It was hot sleeping last night and tonight we're going to leave the fly off our all-mesh tent, hope for a breeze and pray that it doesn't rain in the middle of the night. I'm using my new home made 'sleeping quilt' for the second time tonight. It attaches by Velcro directly to the inflatable sleeping pad. It is lightweight, but will it keep me warm on cold nights? I'm afraid that answer won't come tonight.