Journals-Day 6 Boys

Day 6 June 26, 2006--On the Road

What an amazing day! Now we did touch the Mountain Saint Helen. I definitely would recommend for EVERYONE to visit the Mt. St. Helens! It was so fascinating to observe around the site of the Mountain Saint Helen! While we were in there, it was so dry and HOT, about 102 degree here. To be honest with you, again, we were so exhausted from the hot day and tried to be endure and have a GREAT view at the Mt. St. Helens.

In the morning, again, I was the last person to take a shower and ate my breakfast. I felt like I should go to bed earlier and wake up earlier in the morning to take my time during my morning. Well, we left to the excited events: Mt. St. Helens from out Cottage.

Wow! Drove all way to the Mt. St. Helens was very longer to get in there. We chatted to each other to keep us busy and looked out the window to have the view of the Mt. St. Helens. Honestly, all the parents should see all things that we did today! However the problem was too hot out there. Anyway, we went outside and watched the ranger man who explained about the histories of Mt. St. Helens. During he gave us a lecture, the flies bothered me for like every 5 seconds! AHH I wish I would speak to the flies to stop but I don’t know how to speak with their language. Anyway, he told us that the eruption from the Mt. St. Helens affected areas about 17 miles away, 12 miles up the sky and lasted for 9 hours! I was like SHOCKED and it was so incredible that we did watch the movie which talked about the Mt. St. Helens. It was very unbelievable to watch or listen or even comprehend. I am at a loss for words to explain about it because it was so AMAZING!

While we were listening to the Ranger’s presentation, I took lots of pictures of the Mt. St. Helens and with our students in them, and teachers, too! Also the cool fact is about 5 billion of people in the world can fit in the bowl of the Mt. St. Helens. Believe me! However if you don’t, then I suggested you go visit the Mt. St. Helens and you will be fascinated! Honestly, it was more HUGE than I imagined and I was standing about 5 miles away from it. It was still looked ENORMONOUS. Now I feel like I want to stay in the Washington longer than just in ten days! AHH I have to put my energy to get my opportunity to view the more events in the Washington and Oregon.

Later, Jessica found the Gift Shop which was in the Visitor Center. We entered that shop and observed around the Gift Shop. There were many cool things to buy, but I don’t have enough money to buy many things. Another thing was I don’t need any of these. I decided to buy the sweatshirt with the hood because I needed to catch up for the sweatshirt (I don’t have many sweatshirt at home). Jessica and Mike agreed with me and bought it, too. Now we were the “the three stooges” to have the same sweatshirts!

Oh no, we had to come back to WSD because then we had to have lots of patience while we drove all the way back to WSD which was about 2 hours. That time when we were on the van, I was very hyper and had tons of fun with friends. I think I did deserve that. Anyway we got back to WSD and I started to type my journal. While I was typing my journal, I smelled the good scent which Annie cooked the dinner. I think it would be that good food. Meanwhile we ate dinner; we were so exhausted and got back to work on our journals. I looked at the mirror and I didn’t realize that I already have the sunburn on my face! Dang I have to be careful if any moment, I am ready! Jessica DOES have the sunburn badly which is sad for her!

Tonight, we are hoping to get some MORE sleep. Dear Lord, please give us some more sleep for us because on this Thursday, we will go to the Space Needle Inc Seattle, WA. It will be fun guaranteed! So we need to be fresh on that day! Thank you, Amen.

On The Road Trip Day 6

  Last night, we went to sleep late at 12am but I still sleep very well. But I still am a little tired this morning and I feel like that I don’t want to do something but I have to do something for a class credit. I am really excited to see Mt. St. Helens because I really want to see a really huge mountain!

I ate cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and I just drank orange juice. It was luscious orange juice then I made my own lunch as sandwiches, chips, and drinks. Then we have to be ready about 8am and we can have a lot of time learning and observing about Mt. St. Helens. But we were just late and we left from the cottage at 8:15am. There were 2 hours of driving to Johnston Ridge place which has the view of Mt. St. Helens. The roads have a lot of curves and it makes me very bored because it was just waiting for a long time to get there! We took a lot of the pictures of Mt. St. Helens before we got there and it was very odd! Mt. St. Helens was bigger than I thought and it made me more exciting because I really want to see the lava and listen to stories about the volcanoes!

Finally, we arrived at around 11am and when we got off the van, we felt very hot outside because we were used to staying inside of the van with the air conditioner. We went to the Visitor’s center to look around but Nancy told us that we can watch the movie about Mt St. Helens eruption. We went to the theater very fast because there was a few minutes left to start the movie. It was very interesting and a lot of good pictures that show us more images about the eruption in 1980. The eruption lasted 9 hours and I can’t imagine that the ashes continued to blow! After that, we were looking around the Visitor’s center and we were really seeing a lot of cool facts about Mt. St. Helens.

Later, we went outside of the building and the ranger presented to us about the cool facts about Mt. St. Helens. He seems a very nice guy and he did explain to us for a long time which we have to stick in our brains to know about this. One thing is very interesting fact to us is Mt. St. Helens did erupt for many more times than other volcanoes! We took pictures of us and with the ranger who presented to us and then took the photos of us for Day 6.

Then, we ate lunch and I ate turkey with mustard sandwich which it almost have no flavor at all! I drank Snapple iced tea and it is better than I thought! Later, we walked on the trail to get a very good view of Mt. St. Helens. It was time to go back to the van to go to Hummocks trail to walk for a half mile. We were very hot because we almost stayed outside all day! We saw the rocks which had blown off 17 miles away from Mt. St. Helens eruption!

Later, we went to another place: Forest Learning Center to see another movie of Mt. St. Helens and it made me more fascinated because a man who is a news reporter was showing people in the world the Mt. St. Helens eruption! He just stood there and he was just only a few miles away from the eruption! But it was a good thing that he showed people what Mt. St. Helens eruption looked like. After that, there was more exhibits that we looked around in this building and the exhibits just explained more about the animals and the forests which it was okay for me to look around because maybe there will be very interesting facts about them! But it was really not and I am still curious how long the forests were washed out by the eruption. After that, Jon, Jessica, and I went to the gift shop to buy the same sweatshirts: Got ASH?. We thought that the sweatshirts were pretty cool!

Then, we went back to WSD and during our ride to WSD; we were grabbing our time to type in our journals! Then we ate dinner and I ate roasted chicken, corn, and yummy ziti salad. Later, we still typed in our journals and when we are finished with this and we will go to bed very early for tomorrow!! Have an enjoyable time to read our journals!

DAY 6 June 26, 2006 On the Road

Around seven in the morning, I woke up and felt much better from yesterday. I felt like the energized bunny because I was all charged up for today. As usual, we all ate breakfast, packed our lunches and backpacks. When we got out of the cottage, we started sweating because it was very hot outside. The temperature in Vancouver was supposed to hit over a hundred degrees. Since that we were going to visit Mt.St. Helens, we expected a much cooler temperature there.

It was about two hours of a drive to Mt. St. Helens. Mostly on the way to there, I looked out at the side window to enjoy the beauty of nature as we passed many different places in the forest. We became excited as the image of Mt. St. Helens became closer and closer. We took many pictures of the volcano as we can. It was really interesting to see the North Fork Toutle River that once flowed, is now covered by hundreds feet of mudflow. The landscape itself has changed a lot since the 1980 eruption, nine years before I was born. As we approached closer to the volcano, you can begin to see the impact of the 1980 eruption.

More bald spots on the mountains are starting to pop up. We started to pass more fallen trees. The landscape kept on changing as the image of Mt. St. Helens got bigger and bigger. We arrived at the Johnston Ridge and got off the van. We all walked a little to cross a hill. We all stopped because the enormous volcano was right in front of us. Mt. St. Helens was no more than five miles away from us. The reality of being close to an active volcano made my adrenaline rise.

All of this excitement was focused on the crater where it erupted twenty-six years ago. We all cannot believe how big this eruption was. I could see everything below Mt. St. Helens had all wiped out. We could see that the landslide had covered everything in its path. Looking at this active volcano has made me felt so small and helpless. The impact of the eruption was in my direction from where I was standing. If I were there at the 1980 eruption at this exact place, I would be dead in forty-three seconds. It is hard to believe that this volcano was so powerful and an intimidating force.

We all rushed inside the visitor’s center to watch a movie all about the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. The movie began with Dave Johnston; a geologist who was filling in for another geologist, saying his last words on the radio, “Vancouver, Vancouver, This is it.” Johnston wasn’t supposed to be there on that day of eruption. Somehow, he was meant to be there to say this message. I’m sure if I could hear him saying these last words, I would be crying or emotional because I couldn’t imagine being in his place. Right here where we were at was the last place that Johnston was ever at. The movie was very touching because you immediately felt part of the incident. As the movie ended, we were told to stay at our seats as the curtains covering the huge window began to move up. Here lies ahead of the windows were Mt. St. Helens, right in front of everybody’s view. WHOA!

After the movie, we all went into a room where there were many displays of many different stories of the survivors who went through the 1980 eruption. All of the stories were very touching and unbearable. I couldn’t place myself in these survivors’ experiences. In the middle of this exhibit room lays a dead stump of a former tree which went through the eruption. At the top of the stump was ripped off but only its roots were strong enough to withstand the blast about seven to ten miles away. Hard to believe that amount of power and force inside the volcano has the ability to do that. We also saw many different exhibits such as the seismograph that they used to measure the movements of activity in the crater, a map that overlooks where each place was impacted, and a video showing the growth of a new lava dome from 2004 to now. The movie about the new lava dome was really fascinating because there were pictures from 2004 to now that showed how the shape of this new lava dome changed. This movie made me realize that during my lifetime, Mt. St. Helens can possibly erupt again. Everything about volcanoes has begun to fascinate me because I just added geology to my list of majors that I hope to pick to major in college.

We all went outside to eat lunch and enjoyed the view of Mt. St. Helens. I ate and looked at the same time because it was just intimidating to see this volcano because we’re so close to it. Five miles might seem far to you all but it isn’t to me. Basically we’re right in the area where this volcano has the most potential to destroy. After lunch, we all took a walk on a trail right by Mt. St. Helens. We stopped at a site where a memorial honored those fifty-seven people who died in this eruption. I could feel that it was very eerie because we were all small and this volcano is huge. I started to realize that everybody in the world should respect Mother Nature because there is no knowing what she would do next. It was very scary moment for me because I could be killed right where I was if any eruption occurred today. But I liked the fact that my adrenaline was moving fast and I liked the excitement of being close to danger.

Afterwards, we left the Johnston Ridge and went to a site couple of miles away to walk on a trail that leads us to the “dead” river but it was two and a half miles of walk so we decided not to go. On the van, I slept all the way back to WSD, even when we stopped at other center where all of the educational information about this volcano was at. I was too tired to walk and visit around so I slept until we got back to WSD. If I didn’t have my nap, I would be dead right now but I actually felt great for a long time. We all ate chicken, corn, garlic bread, salad, and French fries for dinner. I didn’t cook this time because I got a journal to write. Au Revior to you all! Be safe and always respect Mother Nature. She has more power than you guys so let her do her job and let us all worry about our safety not how to stop it. Good bye and good night to y’all.