Yep. We did the staycation thing this year. I mean, really, we’re still learning about this awesome city that just happens to be our new home. Not to mention that this was my son’s first visit to Seattle. So we stayed and played. It was a blast!
We started with a day trip down to Mount St. Helens. It was mostly sunny and I hoped that the clouds would hold off at least until evening. Son was hoping the volcano didn’t decide to erupt again while we were there. Volcano = bad stuff, you know. But to allay his own fears, this 10-year-old had done some studying on the different types and how/why they erupt. This seemed to make him feel better about getting a closer look.
The clouds held off just long enough for me to get a couple of good shots as we drove along the highway to the park. There is what’s left of the once-massive mountain, still high enough to have reestablished glaciers along the slopes. And that valley there, with the little stream running down the center? That is what’s left of the river that was filled in by the lahar in the eruption 30 years ago. The ranger said the ash/mud/glacial melt mixture is over 100 feet in some places.
We drove all the way up to the Johnson Ridge Observatory, which is alarmingly close to the face that blew off the mountain (just 5 miles away). Between the clouds that ring the mountain, we could just make out the growing lava dome that has formed inside the crater. There was no way my camera could really capture what my eyes could see through the clouds, so sadly no picture.
Instead there’s this one of Son attempting to give me a dirty look for taking his picture. He’s too cute to look menacing, so it didn’t really work.
The exhibits at the Johnson Ridge Observatory filled us in on the last several eruptions (the big one in 1980 and a small one ~2004) and how the landscape and surrounding communities were impacted. I recommend going all the way there and paying the fee to visit; it enhanced the experience in a much larger way.
  
For example, these tree stumps are what’s left after the initial blast wave took out the forest. They weren’t burned, they were shredded, splintered, and torn from their roots. Scary stuff.
But then the ranger also told us the stories of the people who were caught in the blast area and survived. That was pretty darn cool.
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