I'm sure my few blog followers have given up on reading anything new so. . . . surprise! I'm back! (At least for one entry--haha) A couple weekends ago we hooked up with my brother Paul and his family and headed up to Mt. St. Helens--a place I had not been for about 7 years or more (Kevin has a better memory than I and remembers exactly when we last visited.) It was, however, the first trip for our kids and maybe my brother???? It was going to be a very hot day in Portland--in the 90's--so it was a great way to gain some elevation and escape a little bit of the heat. It was a gorgeous day. Clear, blue skies. We visited both visitors centers and read and saw some very interesting information about the eruption that occurred 30 years ago. The devastation was far greater than I had ever imagined and you can still see remains of it (thousands of fallen trees) to this day. The "clean-up" process has been quite amazing and the area is mostly reforested and beautiful again. It was nice for once to actually be able to see one of the educational movies as Keenan is able to finally make it through. Molly, Kevin and I all took pictures so I chose the "best" ones for this post.
Mt. St. Helens in all its glory
Keenan driving the rescue helicopter at the Weyerhauser Visitor Center, with his co-pilot Cash
View from the north side. Notice how much of the mountain was blown away in the eruption. The mountain's elevation was reduced by 1300 feet.
Molly took this one of me at Coldwater Lake. This lake created after the eruption
A nice little boardwalk following alongside the Lake
On the way home from the mt., we stopped in Longview at this gorgeous park that lined both sides of a waterway. It was now in the 90's again, but between the water and the tree shade, we actually were quite comfortable. Molly took these last couple of pictures as we were resting on the grass and they are some of my favorite pictures ever.
