July 12, 2011 (Our 20th Anniversary)

Today, we drove up to Mt. St. Helens.  It wasn't the best weather but I was glad it was cool.  Cool, unfortunately, turned to "really chilly" half-way up the mountain and, of course, we forgot our sweatshirts.

It turned out to be a good thing that we forgot though as we bought REALLY nice lightweight jackets, ON SALE, for 25.00 each, down from 79.00 each!  They are reversible and have fleece on the inside, even down the sleeves, and were the perfect jacket for today!

We drove up to Johnston Ridge, stopping along the way to enjoy the views from various viewing areas.  Lots of wild flowers are in bloom which added to the beauty of the area.

At Johnston Ridge, we watched a 16 minute movie that was excellent.  It really showed the power of the eruption and the path it took as it raced across the landscape at over 300 mph in some phases of it.

Outside the center is a large viewing deck and the Ranger said after the latest small eruption, over 2000 people would be waiting to get inside when he got to work at 9 am.  I was so glad we weren't part of that.  There may have been 25 people sharing the space with us today which was PERFECT!

The clouds didn't completely go away so we didn't get a GREAT view of the mountain top.  We know we can go there again and see it on a sunny day.....probably not so for the people from Holland that were there!  THAT had to be disappointing for them!


I told Judy I would have stood there and read their "guest book."  It was signed, literally, by people from all over the world!



 

My Judy checking out the information at the first stop.



Judy in her new jacket!

 

 

With my regular camera lens, we could see some dust being kicked up but couldn't tell what was doing it.

Elk Herd taken with my largest camera lens

 

Right side of the mountain where it blew out

View from our table at the restaurant

Our 20th anniversary dinner - couldn't have been better!

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at Patty's Restaurant which was just adorable and the food was excellent!!  We sat outside on the back deck and had a wonderful view of the river below us which we enjoyed while enjoying our dessert of warm fruit cobbler, topped with vanilla ice cream.  Yum-O!!

We spent the rest of our anniversary cuddling three dogs who were over-joyed to see  us return!