This was a school day for the books. We parked ourselves at Paradise (great cell signal!) so Joe could work while the rest of us paraded around Rainier. I’m getting better about figuring out how to make school work on the fly. We did a few of the hikes in the area as it’s a great place to access a bunch of short, noncommittal hikes while having a constant view of Mt. Rainier. We did our Junior Ranger books while drawing the wildflowers, acting like red cascade foxes and hibernating marmots. We posed so many questions (Is that steam from the volcano? (No) How many days does it take to summit Rainier? (1.5) What kind of bee is the white striped one? (Not sure)) to the Ranger as we were sworn in. We read and practiced our phonics cards and sight words. We worked on our handwriting. And as always, we wrote postcards. We picnicked. We played memory and war with cards decorated in Salish art. And we hiked again. It was a lovely, memorable day, especially when I think of past homeschool wrestles to pack in too much and over-complicate.