We started out a little later than initially planned, but we were on the road without incident. Well, that’s not true. We had to turn back because we didn’t have a map and I didn’t have my wallet. We hadn’t hit the highway yet, so it resulted in less than 10 minutes of lost time.
August & Déla were excited, doing the stereotypical asking of when we would be “there” and not getting along in the back seat. Normally Déla is in the third row by herself if we are all in the car, but this time we took out one of the middle seats to have a little more space in the van for stuff – including the cooler. This meant putting August in the back row with his sister.
After a couple of hours in the car (including an ill-advised detour to see if I could find where I used to live over 25 years ago and hadn’t been since) we arrived at the main visitor’s center, had lunch and got a good view of Mt. St. Helens. The kids were thrilled – I mean, hey, that’s a real live volcano in our backyard.
A while later we drove further in and that took much longer than expected. The views, however, were getting increasingly spectacular. You could see the mountain looming larger and larger as we approached. Sometimes it would disappear behind a hill or ridge, only to show up again suddenly in full view, seemingly twice as big.
Also on display was the devastation of the 1980 eruption. While most of the surrounding forest has been replanted and grown back, there is still clear evidence of the power nature commands. Or something like that. It was awesome.
The whole time August was in the back seat simply jumping out of his skin. The last several months he’s become keenly aware that there has been an active volcano here in the state of Washington. While it is disappointing that it doesn’t spew lava, the fact that it erupted is good enough.
We got to Johnson Ridge Observation Center and got our best view of the mountain. You could look directly into the crater and see how the mountain blew. It was an impressive sight. There was a bit of a hike around the area, small and paved, but about a half mile and wound up and down. Déla was worn out by the end. August was eager for more, and Ciaran was simply happy to be anywhere new. Then again, most 2 years olds usually are.
The problem came that we had to drive the little more than an hour OUT of there to get to our hotel and find dinner. It went better than it could have, actually, and the kids were all in by 8:00, which is a decent time, and actually earlier than we had expected when planning the trip.