Mt St Helens

I've been wanting to take the kids down to Mt St Helens for a while so we finally got it on the calendar.  The plan was a four day trip to see all the sides of the mountain.  At the last minute, Dode couldn't get the time off of work but I decided not to let that stop me and we loaded up the van and set off.  Our 1st night, we camped at Seaquest State Park, right across the street from the lower visitor center. 

We'd had weeks and weeks of beautiful weather, but Murphy's Law being what it is, when it was time to take the trip the clouds and rain moved in.  We went up to Johnson's Ridge but the mountain was hiding from us the entire time.  It was very cold and windy but we walked the trails at the top to get a feel for the devestation.

The next day we stopped off at Big 5 for another tent and sleeping bag (sleeping in the van with a blanket just wasn't cutting it in the cold rainy weather) and headed off for Ape Cave, an ancient lava tube.

We'd learned from a previous trip that the best way to see the cave was a lantern and we really enjoyed exploring the lower cave.  Just down the road there is an area called the Tale of Two Forests and it was here that Miriam's carefree trip was to take a turn for the worse.  There is a boardwalk that loops through an area with lots of tree castings left behind after the trees were covered in lava followed by a forest fire.  The hollow area where the trees once fell are in places open on both ends, making fun tubes for the kids to crawl through.  After the long dark exploration of Ape Cave, while looking through a tunnel with light on both ends, it didn't seem necessary to use a flashlight.  Miriam led the way with Jacob behind while I waited on the surface with William (he didn't like the caves).  Suddenly, we heard a piercing scream and soon Jacob emerged with a Miriam who was drenched in blood.  She looked like someone who had belonged in a horror movie.  What we hadn't realized was part way down the tunnel, there was about a 2 foot drop off where another tree had intersected the tunnel.  Miriam ran right off the end and smacked her cheek into the sharp lava.  It looked bad to me, but I didn't want to be an overreacing mom so we headed back up to Ape Cave to visit the ranger.  They stuck a bandaid on it and sent us on our way.  That night, as I was getting her ready for bed, I noticed that blood was running down under the bandaid, dripping off her cheek, and being caught by her dark brown shirt which had hidden the evidence.  The campground we were in locked the gate each night at 9 pm so I went to the park host and explained what was going on.  There was no way they could prevent the gate from being locked.  I woke up Jacob who was attempting to survive our family trip by sleeping as much as possible, loaded Miriam into the van, and took off for the emergency room, an hour drive away.  I have a phobia about hitting deer in the dark and the road to the freeway was twisty with never more than an 1/8 mile straight stretch so I was pretty white knuckled by the time we got to the freeway.  We were done at the emergency room around midnight with a few stitches in her cheek and a prescription for an antibiotic since I waited so long to bring her in (can you say mommy guilt) and I had to make another white knucled drive back to the campground.  Once there, we met the guard who was stationed at the locked gate and I got the priveledge of walking in to the campground at 1 am with a grumpy tired child. 

I wasn't about to let a few stitches ruin our trip so the next day we headed off to the Spirit Lake trailhead, a three hour drive.  3/4's of the way up the mountain, Miriam threw up all over herself.  They'd given her a big dose of antibiotics in the ER and I don't think it went well with the twisty road.  All her clean clothes were back at the campground but we valiantly continued up the mountain, while I brainstormed what to dress her in for the hike.  At the top, it was freezing and the entire place was socked in.  We ate a snack, realized a hike just wasn't going to work for us today, and began the long twisting drive back to camp.  I started to feel badly that my poor daughter had been through a lot and decided I needed to pick up her prescription and to call it a trip.  We packed up camp and headed home a day early.  Nothing goes easy and once we hit the I-5 corridor, I started looking for a pharmacy.  We struck out at the first two because one was already closed and the other was closing too soon.  I found a 24 hour pharmacy in Everett and headed there.  10 minutes off the freeway later, we learned that they didn't  have the medication so we were off to another 24 hour pharmacy with another wait.  And, was Miriam thankful that I had driven all over the place to get her medicine? She hated it!  We disguised it by putting it in her peanut butter and honey sandwiches which luckily are her favorite food.

The moral of the story:  I decided if I can survive our crazy trip with bad weather, the usual child squables, and a minor medical emergency, I can survive a trip to Nauvoo.  Next summer the kids and I are once again packing up the van with our goal to visit grandma and grampa in Nauvoo.

Miriam now has a lovely scar on her cheek.  It's funny to watch when people ask her how she got it.  In her sweet four year old lisp, she tells them, "I fell in a lava tube".  People usually smile without understanding what she said, sure they heard her wrong.