So, this is what our tent and site looked like after our nighttime installation. Not bad! We had our blow up mattresses, mattress pad and oodles of blankets.
Miraculously, Grace seems to be up and going strong!
The trees were really, really huge. That blueish speck is me.
There was a nice little stream just over the fallen tree behind our tent. Brad washed his hair in it (OUCH). Grace was sporting her new socks from Brandon & Ayuri. 
Since we were now in Washington it was time to mark the window with the abbreviation for the new state.
DUH! We’re at Mt. St. Helens!
…which has these funky lava tubes. We took a drive around the southern side of Mt St. Helens, since that’s where we were camping. Some of the roads were still closed due to snow, but most were open and there were some cool interpretive trails. The photos below show the girls & me crawling through a lava tube. When the hot lava pours down the mountain it will sometimes topple these huge trees then harden around them. The wood will either burn up or decay naturally, leaving only the lava tube behind. Because the trees were so darned big they left plenty of space for us to crawl through. Some trees remained standing and left behind well-shaped lava areas.
Our dear Gary Martin saw this photo and commented, “My Precioussssss.” That cracked me up and I can’t look at the picture without hearing that quote.
The wildflowers were simply gorgeous. It was basically still spring up there. There’s not much of a summer.
There was a beautiful stream and waterfall area that we trecked through. The lahar caused by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens cleared land that had not previously been cleared, showing signs of another volcanic eruption that had occurred 25,000 years ago.
After that we got on the road heading up to the Olympic Peninsula which took us around towards the north side of Mt. St. Helens and the better side to see the massive crater caused by the eruption. Of course, it was too cloudy to see the top. Figured. The visitor center there was very thorough and interesting and closes at 6pm on the dot – don’t try to do anything that might put you over, they won’t let you.
There was an interpretive trail around a small body of water. We saw a garter snake, a rabbit and a huge bass.
We had planned to camp out somewhere around Mount Rainier, but we decided that the crummy weather would probably make a trip to the mountain less than desirable. Camping out would be even less desirable than that! Thanks to my trusty hotels.com app I found us a place in Aberdeen, Washington. We even had an indoor pool and the girls got to enjoy it for a little while after our dinner at Billy’s. Brad had a yakburger, but he thought it was a smidge dry. The service was great and that’s a good restaurant if you’re in the Aberdeen area.
