Last of the St. Helens Photos

Headed back down the road

Stopped briefly at the Hoffstadt Visitor Center, at a lower elevation than Forest Learning Center.

If I had the money I would have taken a ride.  My desire for aerial photos on a rare sunny day trumps my fear of helicopters.

I've always liked this sign in Thurston County, and I will probably not see it again for a long, long time.

Mt. Rainier from I-5 in north Olympia.

Won't hear much about JBLM in Lakewood anymore so I shot a pic of the sign.  I don't care for the new name, I still prefer Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base.

Inside the Forest Learning Center, Mount St. Helens

This visitor center is pretty big and features a lot of excellent and informative exhibits.  I'd heard it was better than Johnston Ridge.  

Cool painting of what St. Helens looked like before it blew in May 1980.

This is a real truck, shown as-found in the blast zone, after the eruption.

Mount St. Helens is another near-100 mile one way trip from where I live.

A map showing the blast and blowdown zone.

Rawr

Dave Johnston's last words over the radio, at 8:32 am that day were, "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"  His body was never found.  Johnston Ridge Observatory up the road from where I was is named for him and located where he was standing the day he died.

St. Helens & Spirit Lake before and after

I couldn't really get a good shot of this miniature forest

Teeny tiny logging equipment for the teeny tiny logs.

Forest Learning Center at Mount St. Helens

In an ideal world, I would have driven to the Johnston Ridge Observatory at the end of the road, which has the sweeping view of the volcano.  It's a long drive, with a lot of switchbacks and I didn't feel like doing that to my car, not with a 3,000 mile road trip coming up.  I only went as far as the Forest Learning Center which was really cool.  Great exhibits, films, hands-on stuff.  I was a bad girl in this gift shop as well, but hey, it's my swansong in the PNW.  I want stuff to remember it by.

This is as close as I got to Fire Mountain.

Imagine this valley choked with a massive and muddy lahar, lava rocks and blown down trees, all rushing down the Toutle River, 60 miles to I-5.  The ash blew east/northeast and turned the skies in Yakima black.

A Quick Trip to Fire Mountain

I find myself running out of time to see the things I wanted to see before leaving.  The weather finally turned warm, sunny and clear, so I decided to take a super quick trip down to Mount St. Helens because I have never seen it and have no photos of it.

Along I-5

I took the shortcut through Toledo

The elusive Sasquatch has a small coffee stand along the highway.  Who knew?

There she is

Hoffstadt Creek Bridge

Proving once again that I can indeed drive and shoot halfway decent photos.  lol

I did pull over to shoot this one

To be continued....