Sunday, July 24, 2022- Mt. St. Helens National Monument
We caravanned from the Oak Manor Harvest Host site to Judy’s Diner in Centralia for breakfast. The service was superb and the portions were excellent. Our water glasses and coffee mugs were kept full without us having to ever ask. The decor is charming with lots of country character. This is an excellent diner.
We then caravanned the RV and John’s Elantra to downtown Toledo where we parked the Elantra on the street near the city library, and then took the RV to Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St Helens National Monument.
We stopped the RV at several view points including a bridge overlook and also made a stop at the Weyerhauser visitor center and forest learning center.
A personal highlight of that museum was seeing a logging exhibit featuring the “Talkie Tooter” device that Price’s company Rothenbuhler Engineering makes.
We had smoked turkey on ciabatta roll sandwiches for lunch in the RV in the parking lot at the Loowit Viewpoint, which had a spectacular view of the Toutle river valley below the blast crater. We had run the slide out and even though it was nearly 80˚F, it was comfortable with the windows open and fan on.
People were using spotting scopes to look at elk miles away on the banks of the Toutle river, which even in a very powerful spotting scope were little more than oddly shaped specs. John and Price hiked the 0.8mi trail from the Loowit Viewpoint to the Johnston Ridge Observatory while Janet and Ben drove the RV and parked it in the Observatory parking lot. We toured the Observatory visitor center and watched the film in the theatre, which did not seem particularly well done. The most interesting exhibits were those featuring the stories of individuals who had either survived or died in the blast. Ben, John and Price did a short hike up the Eruption Trail and back along the boundary trail to the parking lot where Janet was waiting in the RV. We learned that the other visible snow covered peak nearby was Mt. Adams, not Rainier.
On our way out of the park, we stopped at the Hummocks Trail and did the 2.6mi loop trail, which was somewhat overgrown by grasses in many areas, triggering lots of sneezes from Price, who happens to suffer hay fever. Janet was on the verge of overheating on the uphill parts of the trail that emerged from the forest. Many of the “viewpoints” along the trail were now obscured by young alder trees and other growth. The trails must have looked a lot different when they were originally developed 40 years ago in the immediate aftermath of the Mt. St. Helens eruption which had stripped the area bare of vegetation. There are lots of ponds of pooled water trapped within the hummocks. The mosquitos must be something fierce as the sun sets.
We also stopped at Coldwater Lake and walked out onto the boardwalks there. Price recalled retrieving a Thomas the Tank Engine toy from the water as a child when he was lowered by his ankles by his Uncle Jack and Grandpa John from the boardwalk to fetch the toy from the water.
We returned to Toledo and had dinner at Chimi’s Mexican Restaurant, which was just a short walk from where John’s car and the RV were parked. While they were a bit stingy with the chips and the salsa was watery (supposedly they charge for the chips and salsa) the food was quite well prepared, tasted good and had good portions. It was much better than we had expected from its location and outward appearance. There was a bit of a wait, but our food did all arrive steaming hot and fresh.
We said our good byes to John, who departed in his rental car to spend the week on business at the Essex Labs plant and visiting Uncle Jack and Aunt Sharon. We headed up I-5 in the RV, and noted a rest area 8 miles north of Centralia (Scatter Creek Rest Area, MP 90) on I-5 Northbound that had a trailer dump facility and was open. In retrospect, we should have taken advantage of that location because the next rest area with a trailer dump that we encountered was SeaTac I-5 Northbound, MP 140, 7.2 miles north of Tacoma, was in poor condition, crowded and one of the 3 dump stations was out of order, clogged with toilet paper. There was no water available for rinsing the sewer hoses or connections. We did dump our tanks and flushed the black tank using our own water via the outside shower and check valves. We also refilled the potable water using the potable water station that was several hundred feet ahead of the dump station. It was after dark but there was lighting at the dump station. We had previously noted on our way down that the Smokey Point rest area that we usually use in Marysville was closed (it had recently been overtaken by Seattle homeless campers and brought to ruin).
Our usual refueling stop was closed (Lacey Costco) but we had just enough fuel to make it to the River Rock Tobacco and Fuel in north Arlington on our “reserve” fuel. The pump stopped at $125 with 21.934 gal @$5.699/gal. I reinserted the credit card and got the pump back on, but it clicked off after just 0.145gal or $0.83. We were down to the last 2.5gal of reserve at that point since the rated capacity is 24.5gal. The RV averaged 14mpg since the Lacey Costco fill up.
We arrived at home close to midnight with 27984 miles on odometer. This was a 557 mile trip total. It was a very brief but fun trip. Since Price had to be back at work on Monday morning, we had no choice but to dash home from Mt. St. Helens, but we could see how we could do a future week-long trip driving around Mt. St. Helens to see the other park entrances and sites including Spirit Lake and the Ape Lava Caves, perhaps combined with some sales tax free Portland OR shopping.
