Panorama Point

Patrick has been busy with family this weekend. His niece, Cierra, and her friend Kaylee are visiting from San Diego. He'd asked me for things to do up here, and thought it would be nice to do a hike to show off our beautiful state. I suggested Skyline Trail up at Paradise on Mt Rainier because it has a view to die for: with Mt Adams, Mt Hood, and Mt St Helens on the skyline, along with the rest of Mt Rainier behind you. He asked if I wanted to join him and I agreed.

So Patrick, Cierra, and Kaylee were all running on about 3-4 hours of sleep. They had spent an afternoon up in Seattle and enjoyed the sunset up at the Space Needle (can we say jealous??). I had told them we needed to be on our way by 6 because it was a 2 hour drive and Paradise is the most popular destination on the mountain. The weather was going to be picture perfect and it was going to be crowded as hell, so we had to get there early. I think leaving by 6:40 was an accomplishment with 2 19-year-olds. And actually, with Patrick as well xD

This was my first time meeting Cierra and she's a very sweet kid. I like her a lot. Her and Patrick have an amazing dynamic and it's fun to watch them interact. I could say he's not much different with me a lot of the time; especially when it comes to tossing straw wrappers at my face.

So anyway, it has been several years since I attempted to hike Skyline Trail to Panorama Point. I don't know how Monica and I had managed it last time - I must have been in much better shape back then! This hike was killer. I'm also older - that probably doesn't help.

 
The hike seemed much more strenuous this time, plus I had a heaver pack on and probably a heaver camera. You do climb roughly 1,700 feet in 1.9 miles, plus the air is very thin that high up. We technically didn't even make it to the top. We stopped at 1.7 miles where there was a lookout point and we could see that we didn't want to climb the rest of the way to the top.
  
We rested at the lookout and played around with the chipmunks that had no fear when it came to
begging for food (which we never gave them. They will steal it though if you're not watching closely!) and hiked back down.

After that, the kids slept in the car and Patrick drove us to The RAM; a pretty good choice of a place to eat that wasn't around in San Diego, not to mention it was on the waterfront. After we ordered, we got a surprise visit from a magician. He was going between tables showing magic tricks to patrons. Now, Patrick loves magic. He told me once he'd love to do it but doesn't have the dexterity for it. This guy was great. He started with card tricks, and even just the way she shuffled the cards was impressive. But although it was fun watching him, I was more interested in watching Patrick. He was sitting next to me and kept looking back at me. The look of pure wonderment on his face was adorable. I didn't think I could love him any more in that moment just by watching the joy on his face.

After lunch, we stopped at Vahalla Coffee because Kaylee wanted to try a local roaster's coffee and she bought a bag to bring home with her. We stopped at my place for a minute since we were close, but unfortunately I had driven down to Olympia so my car was still down there. I was exhausted, but knew we had to go. On the way down I saw I-5 north was a complete mess; more than usual on a Sunday, and I really didn't want to sit in all that after the drive we just had, so I decided to hang out with them for a while. We ended up playing Cards Against Humanity; which was the first time for me because I had never had enough people around to play it before. It was definitely a lot of fun. Kaylee was a beast. I must have liked her humor the most because I ended up picking her card most often when it was my turn.

At 9pm, I was still checking the traffic and it was still pretty shitty - a 34 min drive was going to take more like 45 - I still just needed to call it and go home. So we all split - they decided to go get ice cream with Jordan and Patrick and I ended up going to Target to get a fan (it was so bloody hot in his apartment) because I didn't want to leave him yet.

I know, it's sappy. But I'm about to get sappier. Be prepared.

So I will admit, I am jealous of our time. I am a Quality Time Love Language, and I love our time together. I had felt like even though we had just spent the entire day together, his attention was split with his family. And I'm obviously not blaming him for that, but all the time we get never seems like enough, to me. But watching him with Cierra, and watching him watching the magic tricks, made me fall in love with him even more than I ever thought I could. He keeps me warm from the biting cold wind on the mountain top. Cares for my well-being like no one else. I feel like my heart is going to burst. I don't know how I could have found such an amazing human being. I just told him yesterday how excited I was for our trip to Canada (This week!!) because of all the time I'll get to spend with him - just us; not about LTX and meeting Linus. Not about Whistler and the gondola ride and the views. Just him. And our time together. The most important thing in my life.