Barren to Beauty 7/26/2011

After treating ourselves to a hot breakfast at the hotel, we packed up to head out to Mt. St. Helens. Old hands at maneuvering city roads with the help of our trusty GPS, we plugged in, and discovered...that the touch screen wasn't working. At all. Even after several reboots. Hmmm. Just pull out the map. That we can't find. Hmmmm. OK, I do have a smartphone. After looking up AAA , we discovered that there was an office up the street, stopped in, and collected a few state maps, and tour book. Ray got us pointed in the right direction, and we headed south. About 45 minutes later, I found the reset button on the back of the GPS, and after a few resets, it WORKED.

The day we woke up to was very cool--50s-- and cloudy. During the approximately 2 hour ride down to Mt. St. Helens, the temperature increased to the low 70s. Once we got off the interstate to head east into Mt. St. Helens Monument, we noted by the outside thermometer on the dash, that the weather was getting progressively cooler as we gained altitude. By the time we arrived, it was 55 degrees and cloudy. Mt. St. Helens is a fascinating place (at least to me) because this monumental change in topography happened in my lifetime. What used to be an old-growth forest surrounding a snow-capped peak is now an ash-filled landscape around a crater. The approach to the mountain is covered in what appear to be spruce trees that were planted since the eruption in May 1980. The patches of new trees are odd in appearance. Usually forests are composed of trees of varying heights. All these trees are the same size. And the limbs of this particular species grow fairly horizontally, so when you see the trees from a distance, the effect is almost like a pointillist painting. At the visitor center, we saw a movie that was put together with still photos taken at the time of the eruption, and featuring some awesome cgi effects that were very realistic. The force of the blast from the eruption blew down or scorched 230 square miles of forest. Amazing. Photos of the area immediately surrounding the mountain don't show any tree remains. They are buried in up to 230 feet of ash. Wow. Unfortunately for us, the caldera was not visible--it was hidden in low clouds. The picture to the right was taken looking directly at the mountain. But being witness to the effects of the forces that took place in 1980 was impressive. We'll be back.

We then headed further south to the Portland, OR area. After checking into our hotel, we drove over to the International Rose Test Garden, the oldest official, continuously operated public rose test garden in the United States. Started in 1917, in the beginning, even though World War I was raging in Europe, hybridists sent roses from around the world to this garden for testing and to keep the new hybrids safe from being destroyed by the bombing in Europe. There are thousands of roses, all gorgeous to walk among and admire. It is a beautiful spot. we can't believe that the last time we were here was in 1975--only 36 years ago!