Well, we have been on the road for two months and today marks the beginning of the third--a day with some great highlights. We went to Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument and then took a helicopter ride!
The image above, taken by Evan, was in the early morning at an educational center. Little did we imagine, we would be riding on it in the afternoon!
When Mt. St. Helen blew on May 18, 1980, over 90% of the mountain blew out on a horizontal basis creating a valley full of trees, ash, rocks and water. Evan took this image at the Visitor's Center, check out the huge crater--there is still a lot of activity in that region of the mountain.
John took this image of the valley from the helicopter and you can see the white cliffs--that is actually ash which got to several thousand feet in depth as the blast created a new valley and several new lakes like the one in the top of the image.
John and Evan at the Visitor's Center
As we walked on a trail, this tree was splintered by the blast--the mountain was over 5 miles away and it is estimated that this tree was over 150 years old, which equates to very big. Looks like a toothpick was split in half by some guy. Evan's image.
The helicopter ride was great--and we all got a free tee shirt when it was over, "I Flew the Blast Zone!" Wonder how many questions we'll get when wearing those.
Tomorrow morning we will pack up and head to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.
I know better-I know they didn't let you drive! Looks like the trip was a blast (yuk, yuk)!
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