Day 35

With the cold and rainy night I decided to have hot chocolate ready for the kids this morning to coax them out of their sleeping bags. Grammie was leaving us this morning while we stay and extra day to pick up Dave in Portland. On our way to this spot though, I noticed we were close to Mt. St. Helens so we talked Grammie into going with us for an unplanned morning detour! I also talked our traveling Cook friends to meet up with us at the park as well.

We arrived at the visitors center just in time to watch the movie with our friends. That's how we start most parks so we can learn the history of the area and the park. The museum was fascinating illustrating the history and makeup of the volcano, the Native American connection to the area, and the events leading up to the 1980 eruption.





There was an underground display showing the makeup of this type of volcano why it is so different than others. Interestingly, scientists use core samples from local trees to date the different eruptions before recorded history by analyzing their rings.

There was a silly ranger program next about the eruption the kids really enjoyed.  She told the story of the eruption in a fun way that I don't think the kids will forget. There were fun facts sprinkled in that we all learned from too. This park is actually managed by the forest service and they've done a fantastic job with education here.

We sent Grammie on her way to Oregon and we drove up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory to get a closer look at the mountain. The drive was slow and the clouds were low but we were hopeful we would be able to see it. The visitors center here was another fantastic learning opportunity but there was a program starting in a few minutes so we headed that way instead.

This program was again about the 1980 eruption but from a geological perspective. In the spring of that year sizable earthquakes started happening more frequently so the world's geologists descended on the area to study and make predictions about what was going to happen.

One famous geologist was 7 miles away on a ridge with a great view of the mountain and its changes. Photographers and curious onlookers could see these changes from just outside the evacuation zone 11 miles away. Residents and vacationers had been evacuated in the 27 square mile valley below the mountain. They had reached this number because of reports of 27 square mile devastation from an eerily similar volcano in Japan.

A few weeks before the eruption scientists began to notice with they aptly named "The Bulge". The mountain was growing up to 5 feet per day! See the difference between normal Mt St Helen's and the one with the bulge on the right?

The eruption started with a lateral blast and massive landslide of the bulge devasting everything in its path and the valley below. The landslide traveled upwards of 200 miles per hour and emptied the lake below creating a huge wave of water and mud. Then came the vertical explosion of ash and gases 12 miles in the air. The resulting destruction covered more than 230 square miles.

When residents returned to the area they were shocked to see the change in the mountain. They were accustomed to seeing the view on the left and they returned to the view on the right.

The damage reminded me of many of the hurricanes we'd experience on the Gulf Coast over the years. Houses uprooted and floating away or completely destroyed, mud and water everywhere, trees down everywhere, and people coming home to salvage whatever they can. At least with hurricanes we know exactly when it's going to happen.

We made it inside just in time to watch another short movie about the volcano. Instead of the effects of the local area, this movie showed more of the timeline of the eruption and explained just how the devastation spread so far.





There was a lot of information in the museum about earthquakes as that is the best predictor of eruptions for Mt. St. Helens. The kids enjoyed jumping to make their own mini-earth quakes and see how they were recorded on the roll of paper.














There was an interesting display of the monitors of current seismic activity of the mountain. Right next to it was a timeline display of a more recent set of eruptions in the early 2000s. These eruptions created a 1000 foot lava dome in the center of the caved-in mountain.









Scientists have equipment installed all around the mountain to detect changes. Helicopters drop off the equipment and scientists to calibrate and install everything. The kinds enjoyed feeling the sensations of seismic activity such as earthquakes far away, helicopters landing, or even elk rubbing their antlers on the equipment!

At last we took the walk up the ramp to the viewing area of the mountain. The clouds had lifted just a bit but not enough to see the upper half. I was disappointed but the kids enjoyed running around with their friends and didn't seem to care. I was bummed but I'll be back.

We said goodbye to our friends again and got back on the road toward our errands. On the way back to the main road I had to stop at a bridge overlook to take a picture of one of the bridges we'd crossed. This bridge was the edge of the destruction from the 1980 eruption. It was 17 miles from the volcano.

Today was laundry day so we stopped in Longview, OR at the nicest laudromat we've ever visited! Usually they are dark, dirty, and old but this one was new and clean. No wonder it was full of people! We don't usually pick a weekend day to do laundry but Dave was arriving the next day so we wanted to focus on fun with him as much as possible.

I was tempted to take the kids to pizza afterward but I decided to cook the very-requested pizza quesadillas instead. Brayden was feeling teenagery so he moved to the tent after dinner while the girls and I played games.

We retired to the tent to read but Ryan and I ended up creating all kinds of weird shadow puppets on the tent wall that had everyone roaring with laughter. It's a good thing it wasn't during quiet hours!