Oregon, Part 7

As the song goes, "On a clear day, you can see forever." For us, it was at least clear enough to see all the way to Mount St. Helens. Which is, of course, in the state of Washington, but that's a technicality after riding 2500 miles the week before. What's the width of one state among friends, right?

We were fortunate enough to have good weather that day. Good thing -- the road to the volcano was closed for the last seven miles, so we couldn't get to the observation platform. We did, however, see the mountain from two visitor centers. The picture above is from the closest spot we could find. There were clouds, of course, and it was difficult to see the bowl that now exists in the mountain's peak, but we still got some good views.

Another, more geologically extensive website is here. One advantage of this site is its "volcanocam" photography of the mountain from the Johnson Ridge Observatory, which is at the end of the road section that was closed off when we visited.

The video zooms in and out a bit fast on this one.





On May 18th, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. After the initial explosion and activity, the eruption actually continued in a quieter form until 1986. One of the visitor centers has a display of photos and video showing the area before and after the incident. For the most part, nature has been allowed to recover at its own pace around the volcano.


This picture was taken about 14 miles away.

And for the most part, that was it for the sight-seeing. We spent Wednesday shopping for Western Wear and wandering around the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall. I really should have stayed out of Captain Henry's Pirate Store. Really! Although it was hard to resister the bumper sticker that read "Piracy: Hostile Takeover Without the Paperwork". I am, at least, ready to go see the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean movie in style....