Spontaneous trip to the Mounds of Mima
Cabin fever on a miserably rainy day forced us to leave the house on Sunday afternoon. With no dry playgrounds in the area and no money to spend, Kelly announced that she felt like going on a hike.
Being that Washington is a place where a hiking trail is never more than a 30 minute drive, we did some quick looking online and decided to head south to the Mima Mounds, one of only three of its kind of geological formations in the country!
But we decided to take the scenic route, and wound up traveling through some of the most beautiful countryside in western Washington. We started on Rich Road in Olympia and followed it all the way to Old Highway 99. Then we kept heading south looking for freeway signs.
Our semi-adventure took us through Tenino, as you can see in the pictures, and finally spit us out onto I-5 near Grand Mound. We were past where we needed to be to make our way to the mounds, so we took the freeway north about two exits to Littlerock and made our way west.
Along the road to the mounds, we spotted a beautiful piece of property and I made a mental note to check it out more closely on the way back. We did, and found our dream piece of property…12 acres of tree-lined driveway, a 3K-sq-ft house, 3-stable barn plus a tack room, guest house and even a river running through the back of the property. Absolutely perfect…except the price (does anyone feel like giving us a half a million dollars? Pretty please?) Anyway, about the time we pulled into the Mima Mounds area, the rain lightened up to a fine mist.
Parker, Kelly and I walked into the prairie and up the path to the interpretive center, paused for about 10 minutes to read the information and take some pictures, then made our way up the 1/2-mile loop through the mounds. It was one of those self-guided hikes, with numbered posts corresponding to information in a pamphlet you take with you.
Stop number one: butterflies. We read all about the butterflies, but since it was cold, grey and misty there was nary a butterfly to be found.
Stop number two: wild birds. Again, we read all about the native birds and were left scanning the wavy landscape for any sign of wildlife. Cold, grey and misty…no birds in sight.
Stop numbers three through however many there were: paragraph after paragraph about this kind of plant or that kind of flower, these special ferns or those rare trees. Anyway, with an impatient two-year-old and an ever-dampening mist, we skipped the rest of the pamphlet, took some pictures along the trail and made our way back to the car.
I wanted to take a detour through Bucoda on the way back, but it was already seven, and Parker had to get to bed. Still, a great Washington way to spend a soggy Sunday afternoon. Enjoy the pictures.
In western Washington, if you don’t do stuff in the rain… you just don’t do stuff at all.
Great call!