Our "Instafam" tour wound its way off the mountain finally and stopped for a while in downtown Enumclaw, Washington, a fun little area of King county with chocolate shops, bookstores, bars, vintage shops, coffee shops, and more.

Near the end of Day 1 in the Mount Rainier National Park, we stopped at the satisfyingly appropriately named Paradise, Washington, for some hiking and then a picnic dinner. The views were beyond description! And the weather for us was perfection, as the fog burned off Rainier just as we started on the trail. When you visit the park, Paradise is a must-see!

After lunch we entered the Mount Rainier National Park and took the Trail of the Shadows hike across the road from the Longmire National Park Inn. It's a short hike, but with lots of quick changes of scenery to make it interesting to all ages. As you leave the inn, you get breathtaking views of Rainier and then you travel through swampy meadows and into the forest whose giant fir trees give the trail its name. There are also several springs along the trail, including the vibrantly colored and slightly poisonous Iron Mike spring, and even a restored homestead cabin from the 19th century.

On our last stop before entering the Mount Rainier National Park, we pulled over for lunch outdoors at a lovely roadside cafe called Wildberry. It offers "authentic Sherpa-Himalayan Cuisine of Nepal" and has a big outdoor seating area. I most enjoyed the sunlit prayer flags fluttering in summer breeze. Our morning fog was finally burning off.

Between Ashford and Elbe, Washington, there is an outdoor gallery for an artist named Dan Klennert who builds animals, people, machines, you name it, out of old iron parts or driftwood. Some of it is truly astonishing to see. He calls his park Ex-Nihilo, meaning "something from nothing." And exploring Ex-Nihilo was a real treat.

Continuing my coverage of my July 2016 adventures for Travel Tacoma and Visit Rainier... On the first day of the Mount Rainier section of the "instafam" trip, we stopped in Mineral, Washington, at the Mt. Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum where we got a private tour and learned a ton about steam engines and logging practices. Pretty darn fascinating. And gave me new appreciation for how hard the work was.

Driving to Mount Rainier National Park, we stopped at former logging and railroad town, Elbe, Washington. The tiny town is full of old rail cars to commemorate the industries that built the area in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

In between singing gondola rides and a tour of the Gig Harbor Museum, it was a very busy morning for our "instafam" tour, but we managed to squeeze in a tour and tasting at the Heritage Distilling Company, It is, in their own words, "the most awarded craft distillery in North American by the American Distilling Institute 3 years in a row (2014, 2015 and 2016)." Read more about them on their press page. Pretty cool stuff! Anyway, it is quite an impressive operation there at the distillery, and their spirits are smooth and flavorful, leaning toward the sweet side, which is just the way I like it. We tasted most of their spirits, and my favorite is the award-winning brown sugar bourbon. Definitely check it out sometime.  

Day two of my Travel Tacoma / Visit Rainier "instafam" adventure was a long day full of kayaks and gondolas and going back and forth between Gig Harbor and Tacoma proper. We therefore decided to make a quick stop for caffeine at local favorite Bluebeard Coffee Roasters (renowned for their pistola mochas), and I got to snap a few portraits through their big, shiny windows (one of my favorite pastimes). And of course, no hip coffee shop these days is complete without a man-bun.

The second day of the July 2016 Travel Tacoma and Visit Rainier "instafam" tour was packed. The first thing (after breakfast at the Hotel Murano and checking out) in the morning we went to Gig Harbor, Washington, and met John "Cinque" Synco and his authentic Venetian gondola, Nelly. He runs Gig Harbor Gondola. John rowed us around the tranquil harbor, singing us Venetian songs and giving us a detailed history of gondoliers in America. Pretty great stuff! And the weather was truly perfect, as I think you can see from my photos below.

For Travel Tacoma and Visit Rainier, five of us bloggers/instagrammers took part in an "instafam" tour of the greater Tacoma and Mt. Rainier areas in July 2016. Here is the first of several blog posts about the trip. One of the true must-sees when you're in Tacoma is the Five-Mile Drive through Point Defiance Park. You'll find hiking and biking trails through lush forest; you'll relax on serene Owen Beach with wonderful views of Pugent Sound and Mt. Rainier alike; you'll see thriving wildlife... particularly raccoons (one of my favorite animals).