Mt. St. Helen's

We have just been busy busy catching up on our summer fun!  We decided to trek into Washington to see the infamous Mt. St. Helen's.  We packed our snacks and toys like we were going on a mecca thinking it was going to be an extremely long drive only to find it wasn't far away at all!  We drove about 2 hours to the first visitor's center and Ross was a hoot the entire way.  We've finally faced his car seat forward which I think he was quite happy about.  There's a lot more to see facing forward that's for sure.  
So this little video is proof that we did little to no research about Mt. St. Helen's beforehand...

Haha!  We thought the information guide we talked to said the mountain in front of us was Mt. St. Helen's.  We were quite puzzled since it was completely covered in trees, but hey - the guide should know what they're talking about!  

The fake Mt. St. Helen's! ;)

The Forestry Learning Center

They had these beautiful purple flowers all along the highway.

I love that the playground had a slide in the shape of Mt. St. Helen's

Then when we were chatting with a few other visitors they said you couldn't even see the mountain from there anyway.  So the whole trek up to the Johnston's Observatory we kept guessing which mountain we thought it was.  Now - you have to understand that it was pretty cloudy that day too with the mountains ALL being mostly covered - so we weren't complete simpletons.  When we finally got to the observatory it was pretty obvious which one was Mt. St. Helen's.  We had a great laugh the whole time.

Okay- you have to give it to us - the clouds covering it doesn't make it COMPLETELY obvious!

Ross took a nice little nap before we went into the observatory.

I was surprised to find that 57 people had died - a relatively low amount - but more than I thought.  Johnston - the volcanist geologist who died radioing in the explosion and who the observatory is named for - was killed because their predictions of St. Helen's erupting were that it would erupt from the south side even though there was a huge bulge on the northern one.  The blast after the mudslide traveled 5 1/2 miles in 40 seconds.  There was no way anyone could get away from that in time.  The force itself snapped thousands and thousands of trees right in half.  There are stumps remaining for miles around.  They had closed Mt. St. Helen's public access previous to the explosion inspite of all the pressures to reopen it.  They had interviews of people saying they wanted to be back on their property and it was ridiculous they were banning them from getting in.  Thousands of people probably would have died if they had let people in!  They had some really interesting stories from people who were there.  One couple basically had to jump from log to log down a river of gushing sludge trying to find safety.  Some loggers were severely burned and separated ways at one point.  The one who left the group had his body found later.  Two others died within three weeks after being found.  Only one of the four in that group survived.  Anyway - there's a little bit of info for you!

Checkin' out the facts

You can't see the top of the tree - but it's completely snapped off.

After the little movie we got to watch - the curtains raise so you can see St. Helen's itself!  Pretty cool.

Clearing up.

There we go.  That bulge in the middle has kept erupting a bit every few years.

All the dead tree stumps - it's like a tree cemetery.

After enjoying the gorgeous view and amazing still active volcano, (Steve found out if you pay $500 you can hike up it with a guide...he's extremely temped) we headed back down stopping at the Mile 19 restaurant for some delicious burgers and to-die-for mountain berry cobbler.  

The had some sweet bridges getting to Mt. St. Helen's...I feel like I've said Mt. St. Helen's about a billion times already.  Have I mentioned we went to Mt. St. Helen's?

Ross was jealous he didn't get a wristband...I guess they weren't worried he would sneak in.

 So while Ross napped Steve snuck up to the top to see the view before we went into the visitor's center.  The ranger up there eyed Steve suspiciously so of course - like any normal person - he stuffed his hand into his pocket limping around so they couldn't tell he didn't have a wristband.  Little sneak.

Our view at dinner. :)

Patty's Place - letting Ross run off some energy.  He kept trying to find the dog that was wondering around.  The dog didn't want anything to do with Ross unfortunately.

Who wouldn't want to be around this cute face!

On the way home we had to wait while this cool draw bridge went up for a passing ship.  I'm sure all the regulars were just annoyed they were too late to get across, but we were quite fascinated!

It was a GREAT day trip and we enjoyed every minute of it. :)