Saturday, September 6th.
Before I tell about our day, I have to give a big thank you to our friends the Owens'. Renae is from the Seattle area and she gave us a whole list of things to do while we were there and she had some really great suggestions. I only wish we had 3 more weeks so that we could have done everything on the list!! Thanks guys.
Anyway, we awoke to yet another beautiful Seattle morning. I was surprised to see Bambi up and feeling so well after her "carmel corn incident" the night before. She was chipper as ever and ready to sieze the day. What should we do I asked? "I don't know" she said... "I guess we could head for Oregon."
Oregon it is I said. We packed up our camp and waved goodby to our KOA home and got back on the I-5 and headed south. We had driven for a while and were getting a little hungry but we knew we were getting close to Mt. St. Helens. We pulled off the road in a little town called Castle Rock and ate at a restaurant called the Rose Tree. It was a nice little cafe off the side of the road who has some local business but also gets visitors for Mt. St. Helens as well.
We had a great breakfast and decided to get a closer look at this mountain.
Now, the Fey family (Bambi's maiden name is Fey) has a pretty cool history with the old mountain. I had heard this story before but while we were nearing the mountain, Bambi told it to me again. (Now if anyone in the Fey family spots an error in the story here or has anything else to add, please chime in via the comment section)
The story, as Bambi remembers it, is that her Grandpa and Grandma Fey were in Oregon visiting people in the Portland area. It turns out that while they were there, the mountain started rumbling and the news spoke of a possible eruption. Bambi's grandpa must have taken an interest in the story, and rather than just driving nearby for a look, they rented an airplane to fly up over and around the mountain for a really close look at the action. Now, they didn't know it...nobody did, but they were about to become a part of US national history. It turns out that the day they decided to fly over the mountain was Sunday, May 18th. For those of you who are not up on your history, that is the exact morning when Mt. St. Helens erupted. While in the visitors center, we read the accounts of that morning and the days leading up to that fateful day. It turns out that the mountain started having some activity already the weeks and months leading up to May 18 but nobody knew what was about to occur. You see, these mountains are active and have actually erupted several times over the last few thousand years. However, it is usually hundreds of years between eruptions. We read an account from the day before where geologists were measuring the earthquakes leading up to the eruptions and were still baffled. They new things were churning but they were unsure how big it would be and when it would happen.
Anyway, Bambi's grandpa is one of the few people who saw her blow... from the air. It turns out that their timing was perfect as they were there on that morning when the mountain was awakened by a 5.1 earthquake. The story goes that the North side of the mountain litterally slid down the side as the earthquake struck and as it erupted, it blew over 1600 feet off of the top of the mountain. All of this was followed by an immediate mudslide and a huge plume of smoke, soot and volcanic ash that erupted several thousand feet into the air. The eruption lasted for 9 hours and devastated over 230 square miles of surrounding forest. The blast erased one lake and created two new ones. Homes were devastated and erased from the face of the earth.
The quake and eruption litterally blew huge stands of trees to the ground, twisting them and snapping them at the trunk. The heat was intense, burning everything in it's path and they say there was a shock wave just like in an atomic blast. The eastern sky turned black during the middle of the day, the blast was heard well into Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, and within a few days, the ash had literally circled the earth via the jet stream. Now thats a big deal.
Anyway, Bambi's grandpa had quite a story to tell when he returned to MN. Actually, he was even quoted in some local Oregon newspapers as an eyewitness. Bambi says she got to take baby food jars of ash with her to school for show and tell.
To see it today, you can see that the mountain is healing. The surrounding forests have been replanted in places and the green is returning. However, you can still see the total devastation. The forest service has left everything just as it was. No clean up, which is great. They are using it as a giant petrie dish to see what happens and how the earth heals after this sort of disaster. Sure enough, the ash turns out to be a remarkable soil for new growth (ask anyone who sprinkles campfire ash on their gardens...) There is new plant growth and flowers returning to the area.
The cool thing, is that you can still see the vast acres of tree stands that were blown over during the blast. You can see how these huge 100 year old trees were twisted, burned, and hurled down the mountain to their final resting place where they will decay naturally, and return to the circle of life in this area. Truly God is amazing and you can see how he uses these types of events to reshape an entire ecological system. Through the devistation, there is beauty and regrowth. Kind of symbolic of life I guess. We go along with our lives knowing that we've got it all pretty well figured out. Then out of left field, BLAM! God shakes things up. How we decide to respond is up to us I guess but if we stand back and look for it, beauty really can exist even in the face of devastation. Given time, life goes on and the natural order of things returns to it's balance. I guess the lesson we took from this place is that God is always good... that we know. However, we could also see how he uses turmoil and devastation to wake us up to what is happening around us. As if to say... I know you have this plan, but I want this instead and if I can't achieve it through subtle notions, I'll just rock your world. When it happens, we can either cry for our losses or we can submit to his plan and utilize it as an opportunity for new growth.
(Ok, I know... Ross goes on this trip for a few weeks and turns into a hippie right? Not exactly, but having some time away from "life" does give you a chance to reflect a bit and start to see things a bit differently.)
Actually, Bambi and I just finished a book that was given to us from a friend of ours in Pella. Phil Stravers is a friend and also Anne's brother-in-law. In hearing that we were going on this trip, he gave us this book called "Through Painted Deserts." It's a book about two guys who take a trip similar to ours where they packed up a VW van, quit their jobs and traveled from Texas to Oregon. During the trip, Don - the main character, has a chance to take inventory of his life and starts to ask "why" questions about his life and his faith. It's a great read and the best part is that the places they go in the book are all places where we'd been just a few days prior which made it all real to us. (The name of the book is Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and beauty on the open road. By Donald Miller)
Anyway, in one part of the book, he talks about taking a trip of this magnitude.
He says "It might be time for you to go, it might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you... LEAVE. Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted it to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you that will have changed." Donald Miller
I'll talk about this book more later as we read it and could see it unfolding before us. But for now, I'll move on with our story.
We decided to continue on in our Journey to Portland, OR. We arrived in Portland around supper time and drove downtown where we found supper at a Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery. Great food, and downtown Portland was alive. The kids are back in school and the whole downtown is just buzzing with 20 and 30 somethings. Of course, there are coffee shops on every corner as you'd expect... actually they are on every corner and half way down the block too just incase you can't make it a whole block without your favorite latte. Not being coffee drinkers, we walked the downtown and just took it all in.
After supper, we drove to Columbia River RV park where we spent the night. The next day, we'd take a closer look at Portland... interesting place. We were definitely not in Iowa anymore!
P.S. Hey Phil, if you're reading this. Thanks for the book!! We have enjoyed it thoroughly and it really spoke to us on this journey as you'll see in future blogs. Thank you for letting God work through your life and connecting to us through this story. I know when you gave us the book, you said "just keep it." I'll do it one better. I'll pass it forward to someone else.
1 comment:
R&B, glad to hear you like the book. I'm riding along vicariously with you guys. I hope God will paint the skies for you throughout your journey.
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