Yesterday we went for
a drive to get out of the hotel and unwind. I was driving, so I decided on a
trip to Mt. St. Helen’s – I usually don’t go that way because the whole area is
pretty boring now since she blew her top in 1980 and changed the landscape and
atmosphere …
Mt. St. Helen’s in all her splendor and glory before her 1980 temper tantrum.
Mt. St. Helens after the blast - quite a difference, right?
… but we needed to kill time: we didn’t want to
go on a quick drive and end up back at the hotel; and we couldn’t go home yet
because the fellas were still working on our kitchen: the drive to the mountain
and back would take a couple hours and we’d arrive back in town after the fellas
were done so we could go home for a bit before going back to the hotel to go the bed. We are sooooooooooooooooo ready for this to end.
We may get back in our home this weekend –
that is everyone’s hope anyway; I’m thinking that the work crew is as anxious
as we are to have this project done.
Well, back to the road trip ;-)
We passed through Toutle and came into Kid
Valley where the buried A-Frame house is … and the towering concrete Sasquatch
too: don’t know who made this thing, but they did a fairly good job of it, even
making sure the beast was covered with a heavy pelt of ‘fur’. Both the
Sasquatch and A-frame are showing their age and are covered with the
ever-present thatch of creeping moss prevalent in the PNW. Everyone thinks
Washington is called the “Evergreen State" because of its majestic towering
evergreen trees, but I’m inclined to believe it’s really the creeping moss that
gave the State that moniker; the creeping crud literally covers everything –
even people if they stand still long enough. LOL!
Concrete Bigfoot Statue - 20 feet tall.
A-Frame House before it was buried under eruption muck.
Buried A-Frame House today.
About 8 1/2 hours after our volcanic Mount
St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, a raging 70 mph river of mud raced towards
Kid Valley, about 25 miles distant. By the time the murky muck actually raced
into Kid Valley the flow has decreased to 20 mph when it destroyed homes and
bridges along Hwy #504. A newly-built A-frame house was flooded with 200 tons
of superheated silt, mud, water and ash; the lower portion of the home was
buried 4-1/2 feet deep. The owners hadn’t even had time to move in
before their home was destroyed.
Leaving Bigfoot and the buried A-frame behind, we continued on the drive, commenting now and then on places we remember from 'before' and how much they have changed 'now'.
Quite a way down the highway we arrived at the point where I usually get
choked up and can’t drive any further - Hubs usually takes the wheel from this point; but yesterday afternoon I was determined to cross that stinking
bridge myself – AND I DID! – with Yeshua’s help. We are living in perilous
times, and there may come at some point, a time when I will have to face doing
something else unsettling; and I’ll have to push through without bulking.
Hoffstadt Creek Bridge – the longest and highest bridge on the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway. Tourists parked right in the middle of it to take pictures! Idiots. That bridge gets foggy.
Feeling accomplished and satisfied that I had
hurdled and corralled a particular anxiety, I drove on to the Forest Learning
Center - which is really just a fancy pit stop and Gift Shop – where we usually
see elk grazing faaaaaaaar down below the viewing are of the parking lot. There
were no elk in sight today: probably hiding from the hunters with ‘special
permits’ to hunt them in their protected habitat. Elk are as smart as they are
majestically beautiful creatures.
There were no elk in the field below, but
there were clear lines of the road that had been put in after the blast zone
was opened up to the loggers in 1981. My husband was one of the first loggers
to be allowed into the area for salvage logging and he said that they were
logging the logs from the top of the hill to the mud flats and at one point the
boss had a cat out for a tail-hold for a skyline and he disappeared into a sink
hole, and my husband had to pull him back out with the yarder – like he would
fallen logs. It was dangerous work to do, but it interested them too.
Road used by loggers who salvaged blast zone logs. Not sure who opened the zone up, but they built the road.
The original Spirit Lake Hwy is in the middle of this picture - under a LOT of ashy mud; buried forever and the area was unsafe to rebuild the original road. The highway we are on now was built after the volcano’s eruption.
Ancient burnt out Cinder Cone in the background, shrouded by heavy black clouds.
I saw some things I would have liked to have
bought in the gift shop, but it was an impromptu drive and we really didn’t
have spare $$$ to spend: maybe now that I have conquered that emotional ‘bridge
hurdle’ we’ll come back up in the Spring and I’ll buy them then ;-)
And that was the end of our road trip – I drove a
little further up the road, around the bend, expecting to see THIS at the end
of the road …
Mt. St. Helen’s today. Mt. St. Helens is still an active volcano: she still builds up a head of steam every now and then – and those ‘low-lying clouds’ around her open mouth are tendrils of steam.
… but the fog was so thick I could no longer
see the road. So I nipped into a scenic view turnout and turned back towards
home.
And got the happy news at home that we can move back home Friday!
((((YAY!!!!))))
