Mt St Helens

We spent a glorious morning sleeping in and lounging around the condo. Triina and I unloaded our now very full and messy car. We were too tired to do so the night before but we got it all in almost  2 cart loads. Triina's friend Nick on his way to meet us for brunch, found us as we were trying to haul it all in with the random odds and ends falling off the carts, he took pity on us and helped carry it all in. The wine haul for the three of us from our wine tastings along the way in in the side pic.

With everyone showered and the car unloaded, we we off to brunch in Queen Anne. The 5 Spot is a great little spot with a regional revolving themed menu. This month it was New Mexico, so we got green chilies and flour tortilla inspired breakfasts. Afterwards it was time to show Niina the beautiful Seattle skyline from Kerry Park in Queen Anne. Once again, it was a  glorious sunshine-y day typical of Seattle summers that was now lingering on just for us. Triina had a few friends in Seattle to meet up with and Niina and I were headed for Mt. St. Helens for the day.

It was a difficult choice on what to do that day. The original plan was that on the roadtrip we would go up the Seattle coastline and check out the Hoh rainforest before turning our sights to Seattle. However, it didn't quite work out that way, Triina's friends could only meet Sunday and that would also have been a pretty long day for us to go there and back from Seattle. I did give Niina a few options. We could drive out to the rainforest and Olympic national park, but it would be a long day and the ferry lines might be long. Or we could go to Rainier national park and see the big mountain and do a hike, which was much closer. It hadn't even occurred to me to suggest Mt St Helens until I was pointing out all the volcanoes I had climbed in the area and when that one came up, she lit up on that idea and definitely knew that was the place she wanted to go see. 

We still had the rental car and I was game for whatever, so that was the new official game plan. Triina would go see her friends and Niina and I would go see the one that blew. It was a big further than I had anticipated (solid 3 hours), but I myself had only been there once and had only really seen the backside that you climb, so this was a new experience for me too. 

We got to the first visitor center and saw a really interesting short film on the eruption and toured the museum. We passed a winery right near there but since the morning and brunch had been so leisurely, I was nervous that we'd never get to the top visitor center and exhibits before they closed, so we had to pass. 

The blast areas were really impressive to see, the backside I had climbed didn't have any of the destruction that the front side which had exploded and created a landslide had seen. I think the pictures of the matchstick-like trees that still laid on their sides where they fell on the hillsides and the lahar path that steamrolled over a previously forested valley pretty much say it all. It was a crazy huge eruption that demolished everything in its path, but it was all slowly coming back to life. Nature takes care of its own, slowly but surely.

 We did a small hike around Coldwater Lake, which the eruption and landslide had created and then went to the top observatory at the end of the road. We got there just in time to see a few exhibits and watch another well done short film about the eruption (you totally learned different things about the same story, it was nice). And then we were kicked out pretty much immediately when it was over because by this time it was closing time. We took a few more pictures from the top of the observatory  outside and then were forced back to the car by the evening winds which started to pick up and blow a bit too forcefully for people without coats and in shorts. 

As we coasted down the winding road from the observatory, Triina was calling us about when we would be home and what to do about dinner. With a 3 hour drive ahead of us back and everybody hungry, her and Nick went for Indian food back in Seattle while and Niina and I went off to find a brew pub and a few pints of cider on our way home. We found a great place called Fish Tale Brew Pub  in Olympia that served what Triina and I had observed to be Niina's favorite American meal: a big ass burger. This place served organic beef and organic ales, which hit the spot. Niina and I went for the Spire Ciders, a nice dark and dry apple one for Niina and a regular apple cider for me. It was a great meal for just chilling and relaxing in the evening and a short hour ride home from there back to the Emerald city and to pick up Triina. (well actually we dropped the rental car off at the airport, took a cab home, and then drove out to Bellevue to pick up Triina, and then finally made it back to the condo. But that's the extended boring part of the story)