Mount St. Helens 7/6/05

Hope you all had a great holiday. We made some last minute plans because the day turned out to be clear and beautiful, packed a lunch, piled in the car and made the 2 1/2 drive to Mount St. Helens. What an awesome, awesome sight! We watched the movie in the visitor's center and when it was over they raised the screen and the curtain behind it to reveal a view of the real volcano steaming beyond the wall of windows.

The volcano is still in the dome building stage, pushing out lava (not red hot) at a rate fast enough that if it continues at this rate it will have built itself back up to it's pre-1980 eruption height in 43 years. Most of the dome is just gray rock but the most active spot is white hot and every now and then you can see reddish orange spots on it. It was fascinating hearing about what happened during the 1980 explosion and to see the evidence of how it happened and what resulted from it. The wildflowers were incredible also.

We arrived home just in time to grab some quilts and head over to Lake Wilderness for the fireworks. It was a short show but the live band was fun. Fireworks are not illegal here and there were many impressive home displays to be seen all over town. Poor Truman and Sarah were not happy about all the noise.

Tuesday afternoon, Brennan, Riley and I took Kyle to the science center in Seattle. We all had a good time there.

See those of you in Utah soon!

The Clark family tempting fate by standing 3 miles from the gaping mouth of a steaming volcano.


Trees blown down and stripped clean by winds from the 1980 explosion. Whole hillsides of these trees all lying in the same direction can be seen for miles around.


Beauty amid the destructioRemnants of trees blown over in the 1980 eruption.
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Remnants of trees blown over in the 1980 eruption.


The hills are alive. . . . . .


Human sacrifices?


Playing with the vortex at the science center.


Kyle blowing a giant bubble at the science center.