[MRM]

Thanks again for all of the suggestions. Rather than staying in Seattle, I am tentatively planning to immediately drive to the Mt. Hood area. We would stay there and use that as a base of operations to visit Mt. St. Helens and any place that's a day trip from Mt. Hood. On the way back we would stop at the Museum of Flight on our way to the airport. We have an afternoon flight home.

It seems that this would eliminate visiting Olympic National Park and the Peninsula. Does the tradeoff of going deeper into the mountains and avoiding Seattle traffic make up for missing Olympic? Finally, any suggestions for places to stay in the Mt. Hood area?