Thursday, July 8, 2010

Road Trip-Mount St. Helens

We just got home from a fun family road trip over the mountain to the west side of the state! Tony had some leave to burn and was able to get a couple days off mid-week so after piano on Tuesday, we threw the kids in the car and headed to Seattle. We spent the first night in Kent and then got up the next morning and headed south. Our first stop was at Mount St. Helens. Tony and I were both about 6 when she erupted on May 18th, 1980 (in fact, Tony did a research paper on it in third grade and as a young girl I poured over a book my parents had on the disaster) and we were kinda excited that our plans for the day took us right by the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center.

It's a nice little Visitor's Center with lots of static displays on the history of the area and then a large timeline chronicling the build-up and the aftermath of the actual eruption (this picture, if you look closely, is a before and after shot of Mount St. Helens). We watched a movie of the eruption and couldn't believe the power and magnitude of the disaster. Spirit Lake all but disappeared only to settle back into two entirely different lakes.   Sweeping through the Toutle River Valley, the eruption caused the largest landslide in recorded history. Crazy.

It is amazing that just thirty years after the eruption and the total devastation of the area, it is again absolutely breathtaking.
On our way home today, we asked Josh what his favorite part of our trip was. He said "pushing the buttons on the volcano"...
And this is our beautiful Anna, sporting her new haircut.








More to come...

3 comments:

Jenni said...

Oh, I am so glad you were able to see this side of the state! What do you think? It sounds like you had a fun trip together with your family! Can you believe I have lived here most of my life, and have never been to Mount St. Helens?....

I hope you are having a great summer so far! :)

The Brough Family said...

Super cool! So glad you were able to take a road trip as a family.

Albanie said...

aren't family road trips just the best? It looked like you guys had fun and took some beautiful pics.