Mt. St. Helens

Last weekend we decided to make the trek to Mt. St. Helens. We took the roads to the eastern lookout which was a beautiful drive and the roads wound back and forth a lot. Luckily none of us gets car sick, but by the end I was ready to be done with those roads. As we were driving up the road to the lookout we noticed the devastation from the blast, there were lots of old trees lying on the ground and they all pointed in the same direction. There are lots of shrubs and flowers growing back and the tallest trees were maybe 15 feet tall, but it was nothing like the forests we saw on the drive up. They were THICK. So I can imagine how devastating the blast was to the area. We got to the lookout that was accurately named Windy Ridge. It was very windy. Then to get a better view you climb up these man made stairs. Logan had to be carried, otherwise we would have been climbing all day long-there were a lot of stairs. It's amazing to see the crater the blast left.

As you look out onto the lake near the bottom of the volcano, you see this pile of dead trees at the far end of the lake:

As I was staring at the volcano I noticed there was a white spot that looked whiter than the snow on the volcano and realized it was smoke coming out. I didn't realize it would still smoke. Luckily we brought our bigger lens for the camera and I got a good picture of the smoke rising from the volcano:

As we were leaving Logan and I had a cute conversation in the parking lot. He has seen volcanoes on Little Einsteins and those volcanoes have hot lava spewing from them. So we are walking to the car and he says in an upset voice:

"I want to see the volcano."

"It's right there." I say pointing to it.

"But I want to see it." he says.

"It's right here." I say pointing again.

"But I want to see it." he says again, this time getting more agitated that I don't understand.

So I stop and say."Do you see the mountain with the snow on it? That is the volcano, but it isn't erupting now. If there was lava, it wouldn't be safe for us to be this close."

"Oh." was his reply.

It was so cute. He thought we were going to see a volcano spewing lava like in his shows. He was terribly disappointed.

It was a very fun activity to spend the day doing and the kids enjoyed getting out and seeing something new. Next time I think we will go the opposite way to the visitors center and see what it is like.