After lunch, we started our long journey home. Ben had to make a pit stop at one of the rest stop as he felt sleepy after a big buffet lunch. He took a short nap before continuing the drive home.

The drive on I-5 was not always smooth. Sometimes the traffic just slow down without apparent reason.

Nanzaro requested for dinner since he is a growing teenager. Ben and I were still full. So, Ben made a detour and stopped at Jack in the Box.

Nanzaro ordered a Sirloin Burger Combo for $7.88.

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On Sunday morning, Nanzaro and I had breakfast at the hotel which comes with free continental breakfast. Nanzaro had a diy waffle while I had toast. Ben skipped his breakfast.

We checked out after breakfast and drove to Oregon to do some shopping.

After shopping, we decided to look for a buffet place for lunch. We found Hometown Buffet via Urbanspoon.com.

Hometown Buffet belongs to the same group of buffet as Old Country Buffet.

The spread of the food is similar as Old Country Buffet.

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After settling down in the hotel in Kelso, we walked out to scour the neighbourhood for dinner. We picked Shari’s over Denny’s as we can find Denny’s in Vancouver but not Shari’s.

Ben ordered Grilled Chicken Penne Alfredo. It was rich and creamy. The grilled pita on the side was really crispy.

I had the BBQ ribs which is on limited time offer. I opted for the yam fries with $0.99 extra. My meal came with cornbread and butter and a side of coleslaw. (more…)

Since we did not manage to complete the Dead Horse Creek Trail, we decided to do the easy trail which leads to Myrtle Fall.

The steps lead to the starting point of most all the trails.

The easy trail is wheel chair friendly.

The meadow with little wild flowers. (more…)

At last, we reached our destination; Paradise on the south slope of Mount Ranier.

Paradise in a popular destination and parking was difficult; We only found parking a long way down the road. But the view of the valley with residue of snow on the slope was spectacular.

More snow…

We walked past several water falls just from where we parked our car to the visitor center. (more…)

Finally, we reached Mt. Ranier National Park.

Entrance is $15 and is valid for 7 days.

We stopped at several view points during the drive from the entrance to Paradise. The above is Kautz Creek.

A big pine cone found on the ground at one of the stops. (more…)

After breakfast, we started our journey to Paradise, Washington.

The first place we hit was Mossyrock Park. It was a nice camping ground with the view of the Riffe Lake.

We just did a drive through the camp ground and proceed on with our journey. We simply love the drive with luscious greens on both sides of the road.

We then came upon the Mossyrock Dam. It is the tallest dam in Washington state, standing 606 feet above bedrock. Mossyrock Dam generates about one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. (more…)

The next morning, we drove around the neighbourhood for breakfast. Nanzaro wanted diner style breakfast.

We found a family restaurant just a few minutes drive away. I love the huge flower hanging baskets which decorate the outside of the restaurant.

The dining area is divided into 3 sections; one section is decorated with bicycles, another with model planes and another is called farmhouse.

All of us have coffee. Ben and I have coffee with sugar and cream while Nanzaro likes his coffee black. (more…)

After dinner at Thai Dish Restaurant, we decided to go for dessert. Since we were on vacation, we allow ourselves to have some treats. Ben and I shared a chocolate…

We left Seattle Center about 3:00PM. We were heading to Centralia for the night and we estimated that it will take us slightly over 1 hour as Centralia is about 80 miles from Seattle Center. We were very wrong because the traffic snarled on I-5 and it took us more than 3 hours to reach our destination.

After checked into the hotel and washed up, it was already 7PM. We decided to just check out the neighbourhood by foot to look for a place for dinner. Enough driving for Ben for the day.

We gave Nanzaro a choice between Chinese food and Thai food. He opted for Thai food. So, we had dinner at Thai Dish Restaurant.

There were several tables occupied at the time we arrived. We were let to another side of the room where there was a long table of a party of 10 or more customers.

We ordered a Tom Yum Koong to start with. The spicy and sour soup with shrimp, mushroom, tomatoes and pineapple whet up our appetite. However, after the soup was served, it took a long while before the rest of our dishes to arrive. We finished the soup which already gotten cold before the rest of the food arrived.

The above is Muek Koong Prig which is squid, shrimp, peppers, onions, mushrooms and basil stir-fry. When the server asked us how spicy we like our dish, we initially asked for very spicy. The server warned us that they use habanero chili and it’s going to be very spicy. So, we switched to medium spicy. It turned out that medium spicy is not spicy enough for us. I do like the basil flavour in this dish.
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