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!

Day 13

We had some goals for the day and hopefully it wouldn't include all that much driving. Everyone slept in pretty late after our late night. We shared some oatmeal and headed out for the morning. Our first stop was the Ya'i Heki' Regional Indian Museum. On our drive up from San Diego I noticed a bunch of small pockets of reservations - super tiny towns with signs about a mile apart noting which tribe called them home. This was much different from the huge reservations we'd driven through in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Montana.

This museum was a fantastic learning experience about the Indigenous peoples of inland southern California. The three main tribes we learned about were the Cahuilla, Cupeno, and Luiseno.  They didn't have and written language so the customs, morals, and history were passed down orally through generations. We played some of the games the kids played to sharpen their hand eye coordination and learned about several more. The kids were practicing for hunting at a very young age.

One of the docents took us under her wing and basically led us around a good portion of the museum and shared so much of her knowledge. We learned so much!   The kids recognized some plants from their horticulture studies that they use for all kinds of different natural remedies or food. 

We learned once Europeans moved in the tribes lost their ways to provide for their families so the men became ranch hands for these new people and many of the women began to weave intricate baskets to sell. These baskets were highly sought for their designs and craftsmanship. We also learned this art has almost disappeared from their cultures because the resulting hourly wage from creating a basket for what they can sell them for currently is not near enough to support a family. 

They also had a fabulous display on loan from Washington D.C. about the service of Native Americans in the military through all the wars. We decided we might need to go back to D.C. to visit the museum as it was just being built when we were there.

Ira Hayes was one of the men raising the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima.  One in four Native Americans volunteered to serve in Vietnam while only one in twelve of the general population did so. Many grappled with the hypocrisy of killing and taking someone else's land when just that same thing had been done to their people.

 We learned about many of the tools they used in their daily lives - many we had never seen before. Even in our world full of technological advances we were impressed by the ingenuity of their tools to solve the problems they were facing.

The docent also happened to have a rattle snake skin so we learned a little bit about those guys too. We haven't seen one on this trip yet and were fine if we didn't!  We were also hoping not to see a mountain lion in the wild either. This stuffed guy was enough for us!


The view on the porch facing the lake was beautiful too so we took a few minutes to enjoy it too.

Next up was laundry. It definitely is lowest on our list of chores but we were about 2 days from running out of clothes so we carved out an hour to get it done. I love the laundromats that have the capability to wash our 4 loads all at one time in 20 minutes!


Once we got back to the campground we had lunch in the tiny bit of shade we had then headed straight for the beach. Tempers were flaring between all three kids so water was often my solution. It was hot again today and everyone else there thought so too. The beach was the most crowded we'd seen it but we found a little spot that we could call our own for a little while. People were bring these giant 20-ft floats that were crowding everyone and then they weren't even using them! After about an hour or so we headed back to the campsite to get ready for what I'd been looking forward to - a twilight hike!

When we arrived to the parking area there were at least 100 people there. We aren't used to these crowds! Thankfully the interpreters were expecting it as they had three different options for us to choose from. We chose the 2 mile hike up to a 360 degree viewpoint including education on history of the Native Americans in the area. It must be our theme today!

This hike was level at first but the incline changed dramatically as we kept on. The interpreter had perfectly timed stops to let us recover and learn a little more about the culture.

The view was breathtaking once we reached the top. We saw parts of the lake we'd never seen before! We hung back for a minute as everyone left to enjoy the view and get a unobstructed picture of the view.

It was quiet and dark by the time we got back to our site - perfect for a fire! Brayden started the fire and they all whittled roasting sticks for marshmallows.  We were all too tired to stay up and enjoy the fire too long so we decided to leave some of the wood for the next people and get some sleep. We had big plans the next day!