Tuesday was the start of our last summer camping trip. We finished packing up, had everyone go to the bathroom and get ready to pile in the car... The last step was to get Tido to his cage in the car. I knew putting his cage in was a pain so I decided to put it in and bring him out to the car by hand. Keep in mind I've had him outside with me before. He would just hang out and even cower on my arm. Well, this ended up being the worst possible decision. For whatever reason, Tido decided that that day was the day he would really fly... Boy did he. He circled the house and several of the neighbors' houses. We called, held our arms up, did the standard things that would normally get him to come to us in the house. Instead he decided to go land in a tree in the greenbelt, near the river, behind our neighbor's house.
Fortunately we are friends and I was able to go through their yard and in to the green belt. Daddy had seen him land in the tree and Kayda (with THE most obnoxiously high pitched screech a human can make) got Tido to occasionally make some noise. We knew he was in the tree, but it turns out he is perfectly colored to blend in completely with that tree. We could NOT see him. So Daddy and I took turns climbing up the weedy tree, with limbs of questionable strength, attempting to find the bird. After an hour and a half it got too hot and we were really frustrated. So we stopped and sat outside eating lunch. Hoping the bird would chase us down for food, which he normally would do at home. It didn't work. So we climbed again.
This time Daddy climbed even higher until it was absolutely too dangerous to go higher... and he saw the bird. Way out on one of the branches. He called to Tido, who of course wouldn't budge. Daddy was able to get another branch and get Tido to climb on to it. Then he got Tido on to his shoulder. Keep in mind he's WAY up in a tree. He had to get down. I had tried climbing with the bird carrier earlier and the branches were so tight that it made it nearly impossible to make progress, but we were going to try again. Before we could, Tido climbed up Daddy's arm and hopped out onto a branch again. Daddy got a branch to reach for him again.... then Tido was gone. He blasted out of the tree, circled the houses nearby, went to the other side of the street, circled houses and then flew off into the hazy afternoon. Kayda and I ran out, jumped in the car and followed to the best of our ability. We wandered around, Kayda with her obnoxious screech and me pausing at every sound. Daddy and the boys walked the neighborhood. We thought we heard him once but couldn't get him to make his noise again.
At that point we really didn't know what to do. We went home, pulled his cage out back and sat. We were sure we would never see that bird again. We decided to make some arrangements, just in case, and head on our trip. There are SO many hawks and eagles near where we live that we didn't think he would make it.
So we headed to Beaver Bay Campground. Kayda, of course, had a really hard time going to sleep that night. We had no cell service so we had no way to check and see if he had been seen. So first thing in the morning I drove in toward town to find reception. Tido had been found! Some local girls had been able to coax him in to his carrier (which Cassie brought to them). So Kayda and I headed back him to get him. The boys ended up stuck at the campground for the day since we had the car. They played in the lake, and on the playground, and generally managed to stay entertained.
The boys were playing "American Ninja Warrior" on the playground. Daddy would give them different ways they had to do things, for example, they would have to do the monkey bars doing 360's.
They found a couple of rocks to jump off of. These pictures were right after Kayda and I made it back. Carson had been jumping early but I didn't get any pictures.
Here is the bird, safe and sound in his travel cage. I am so angry with this bird, so is Daddy. He's getting his wings clipped ASAP. I'd been putting it off. I learned my lesson, I'm not dealing with that again.
The kids had a great time with the hatchet. They were constantly finding logs to try to chop. They also used their pocket knives to saw the smaller branches. All under supervision and with rules in place, of course.
Thursday we finally go to do what we had set out to do. It was supposed to happen Wednesday but we were retrieving the bird. So we headed up to Ape Cave. After talking with the kids we decided to do the Upper passage. It is longer and requires some climbing and scrambling, it certainly sounded like more fun. It is the longest known lava tube in North America so why not do the longer portion? Our kids are pretty sturdy and adventurous so we thought we'd try it.
Carson had a hard time with the cold and wanted to turn around for the first 30 minutes or so. Daddy kept coaxing him to keep going. Kayda and Dillon were set to go and we frequently had to have them slow down to wait for us. Eventually Carson started to enjoy the challenge of it. He'd hold our hands and tuck his into his sleeves then follow along beside us. After quite a while he decided to hold his own flashlight again and started finding his own paths through the rock piles. There was a place with an 8 foot wall. Everything I had read indicated there was a rope to help you scale it... there was NOT a rope to help you scale it. Fortunately Daddy was able to help the kids and then we were able to get ourselves up. There were a couple parts that were too high for the kids so it's good they're still small enough to boost.
Dillon was trying to find the hardest possible routes so in one place he went through a side you could only crawl through while the rest of us went around.
Finally found the skylight!
At the end Dillon decided he wanted to go to the "natural end" of the lava tube so he and Daddy headed off. It only took them a few minutes to get back to us though.
Then we had to hike back to the beginning. It started out all well and good, no big deal. We had all enjoyed ourselves and we had lunch waiting at the car.
Then Carson decided that his legs hurt. We were able to coax him along until he started a tantrum. I sent Daddy, Kayda and Dillon ahead. Carson wouldn't budge. He cried and he cried HARD. Multiple people passed us and I kept showing him the other kids saying "hey look at them, I bet they're tired too." I refused to carry him, he is six and still thinks he should be carried everywhere whenever he feels like it. Well, I'm done with that. So I half dragged him down the trail. Finally, after about 15 minutes I got him to start moving again. The deal was he just had to get to the parking lot and THEN I would carry him. It was a LONG hike out.
Since we were supposed to have two full days I had planned two hikes. Ape Cave was kind of unimportant to me. Where I really wanted to go was the Lewis river falls. There are three portions, upper, middle and lower. The entire hike is about 9 miles round trip so I knew we wouldn't make it the whole day. But I had REALLY hoped to see the lower falls. It was decided we would go straight from Ape Cave to go the the falls. Carson and Daddy could hang out in the car, Kayda and Dillon would hike with me. Turns out it wasn't much of a hike. To get down to the water of lower falls wasn't even a quarter mile. Though you do have to go off the main trail (which I normally try NOT to have my kids do).
I had brought swimsuits, but thinking Carson and Daddy were staying in the car (so we wouldn't have time to swim), I left them there. I really should've just gone back to the car to get them. We were able to cross the river and get right up to the waterfall and the water was BEAUTIFUL.
Kayda was almost surprised she was getting wet when she was standing there.
She had slipped on the way across so she was going to dunk her shorts, she was cracking us up.
If there is a log, it MUST be climbed.
Back on the main side of the river you can walk along a little cove and there is water coming through the rock and out the plants.
The pictures don't do it justice. The pool was such a vibrant color. Unfortunately it was getting later in the evening and the shadows were starting to take over the area. I easily, and happily, could've spent an entire day just in this one location. It's definitely one we'll come back to, and hopefully explore the other two as well.
We played a lot of board games this trip. Turns out the kids are much more easily entertained when other kids are around!
You'd think this kid never had a smore before. He was a sticky mess by the end. It reminded me so much of when the kids were really little.
Friday we packed up and moved to Seaquest State Park. Basically the opposite side of Mount St. Helens. We spent the day Saturday going to all three visitor centers (there are four but one was closed). The kids did great with the drive and we were able to watch a few of the films and a junior ranger presentation.
All three kids got to be volunteers for part of the presentation. Kayda was representing Johnston Ridge in the reproduction of the eruption.
The boys got to use alka seltzer tablets to shoot the tops off film containers.
The kids got junior ranger badges and certificates for participating in the presentation.
If you can see the mound of dirt along the valley they are called hummocks and are parts of the top of Mount St. Helens when it had the triggering landslide.
It was really interested to read and see everything about the eruption. There were a lot of things I didn't remember from my last visit. This map was particularly interesting to me. Everything started in March of 1980 when there was a shallow, 4.1 earthquake directly under Mount St. Helens. They set up extra monitoring and watched while the earthquakes became more frequent. They watched a crater begin to form, and then a bulge on the North side of the mountain. The "bulge" grew 450 ft over the course of 3 months. The scientists saw the development of "harmonic tremors" which are basically one non-stop earthquake that typically proceed an eruption. Finally, a month later (April 30th) they set up hazard areas... the red and blue zones seen in the map. Not even a month after that (May 18th) the eruption happened. It started as one major landslide, the entire north face practically melted off the mountain, it was the largest landslide ever recorded. The landslide (yellow) reached as far as 14 miles away. The first part of the landslide went 8 miles in 12 seconds, the second part went 11 miles in 5 minutes and the last slide went 14 miles in 12 minutes. Then came the lateral blast out the newly exposed side of the mountain; its scorching gas and debri blasted down trees and tore some right out of the ground (light green). When it started to slow it created scorch zones where it basically cooked the trees where they stood (dark green). There were no fires because there wasn't oxygen for fires. Then the pumice flow came out, finally some magma. Apparently, it would trap pockets of water, then, because it was so hot, it would cause a mini eruption and create a crater in the pumice stone. These little blasts happened randomly for weeks, months and in one case a YEAR after the initial eruption. So the new pumice field was littered with craters. All the heat melted huge portions of the glaciers and of course caused lahars that reached as far as 50 miles away. The eruption formed an ash cloud that reached about 12 miles vertically. The ash coated Washington and fell as far away as Oklahoma. One of the things they didn't expect was that wet ash is an amazing conductor of electricity so it was causing problems with power lines everywhere it fell.
All of this was fascinating to me but it amazes me that the majority of the area closed by the government for the safety of the public was SOUTH of the mountain, despite the fact they were watching the bulge develop on the NORTH side. Of the 57 people that died only 3 of them were in the restricted zone. The rest were all where they were considered "safe". The government did lower the water level on the dams anticipating flooding which helped some with damage control... As much as you can control the damage of a volcano. We also found out that the mountain continued to have eruptions throughout the summer of 1980. There was regular activity and growth in its lava dome in the crater up until 2008.
Kayda and Dad walked up to a higher viewpoint hoping to see more of Mt. Rainier. The were disappointed.
More card games... and board games right up to leaving Sunday morning.
The kids were troopers with all the driving we did. Kayda and Dillon are quite the adventurous kiddos. They're ready to do most anything you put in front of them. Carson just gets tired. I don't think he has figured out how to enjoy hiking just yet. I'll keep working on him though!
