Mount St. Helens

Mother Nature owed us one from yesterday, and boy did she come through today.  Sunny and upper 60’s to lower 70’s is hard to beat (especially since we’ll be returning to the 95 degree sauna we call home tomorrow).  We headed up to Mount St. Helens National Monument this morning.  Unlike our trip up and around Mt. Hood yesterday, we could actually see the mountain today.  St. Helens erupted in 1980, killing 57 people.  It’s located about 50 miles north of Vancouver, but to get to it you drive about 40 miles north on the interstate and then you need to drive about 55 miles east on highway 504, which dead-ends at the Johnston Ridge Observatory about 6 miles north of the crater.  The 55 mile stretch on 504 is a GREAT road!  Washington did a fantastic job laying out the route, so in addition to being absolutely beautiful, it’s also a fun drive where you can actually maintain your 55mph speed.  If I ever make a “Great Drives” list, I’ll have the 504 to Mount St. Helens on it. 

On the way up to the crater, you pass a number of “visitor’s centers”.  I don’t think any of them are ‘official’, but we were surprised at how nice some of them were.  The first place we stopped was actually the exception.  It was basically a trailer selling souvenirs, but it did have one draw that got us off the road – a giant statue of Bigfoot!

Messin' with Sasquatch! 

 

A little further up the road we stopped at “Ecolodge” and more specifically their “Back Woods Café” for a piece of homemade pie.  Nel chose the Mountain Berry, while I opted for the safer Chocolate Silk.  Mine was great, but I don’t think Nel really cared for hers.  The place was nice, but I was most impressed with the kid working there that waited on us.  He was probably 12 or 13, but basically seated us, took our order, cut and delivered our pie, made up our bill, and took our money.  He was as good as any waiter/waitress I can recall having. 

After our pie, we headed further up until we reached Hoffstadt Bluffs Visitors Center.  It was a fantastic building with even better views of the mountain and the valley leading up to it.  They had a nice restaurant as well, but we just stopped in and looked around a bit before heading on to the Forest Learning Center.  The views get better and better the closer you get, and the FLC has some great ones.  They even have an elk viewing ledge. 

The view from the Forest Learning Center

 

From the FLC, we drove the rest of the way up to the Johnston Ridge Observatory.  The JRO is named for volcanologist David Johnston who was camping on the ridge on that fateful Sunday in 1980.  His last words were “Vancouver, Vancouver.  This is it!”  They never found a trace of him.  From the JRO you have a perfect view into the crater that was formed by the eruption.  It’s actually about 6 miles away, but looks much closer.  The JRO is the only place we stopped at on the entire trip that charges admission.  The funny thing is that they have no way of actually checking to see if you paid.  You have to walk into the building to pay, and a lot of people just don’t.  That’s not how we roll, so we went in and paid our $8 each.  If you’re so cheap that you feel the need to ‘get over’ on the park service, just stay home.

The unbelievable view of Mount St. Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory

  

After heading back down (and sweating out a minor question of fuel in our tank – no gas stations after you pass mile marker 19 on the way up), we stopped for lunch at “Patty’s Place at 19 Mile House” for lunch.  It’s basically an old converted home with a great view of the river valley.  We snagged a seat on the wraparound porch overlooking the river and had some really good burgers.  Nel went for the “Mount St. Helens Burger”, which had a fried egg and all kinds of other things on it.  It looked awful to me but she really liked it. 

Dining on the back porch at "19 Mile House"

One of the resident "greeters" laying down on the job.

  

We drove back to Vancouver, stopping only at a few antiques places but not buying anything.  We headed out to dinner later in the evening, and got lucky.  Collectively, Nel and I are TERRIBLE at picking places to eat.  I’m a decision maker by nature, but I just hate picking restaurants.  Nel is no help at all.  We have the Urbanspoon App on our iPhones, but it’s a total crock.  If it really would randomly pick a location, it would be great!  However, if we both shake our phones together we ALWAYS get the same eating places in the same order – they must get paid.  Anyway, we rolled out of our hotel and headed to a pizza place just up the street, but when we got there it really didn’t look like a good place to eat (it looked like a Dominos delivery store).  We used our “Around Me” App and found another pizza place across the street.  When we got there it was no better.  I had remembered a fun sounding German place from an earlier search so we put it in the NAV and headed to “Gustav’s Pub and Grill”.  It was a bit of a drive, but what a fun place.  The building was great – like a German barn – and the food was good too.  We had fondue (they should call it FUNdue) and Nel enjoyed some kind of German beer.  Back to the hotel and back home tomorrow.