Journals--Day 6 Girls

June 26, 2006

What an amazing day. Today was the sixth day. Oh boy, it went so quickly. I wish we could stay here more than 4 weeks longer. We can learn some more about Washington and Oregon and stuff like that because I think it will be fun to learn something new and more experiences. We woke up at around 7am. Lymarie woke me up. I felt so exhausted and at the same time I was so excited because I was going to see MT. ST. HELENS! I just can’t wait for to see it. Anyway, I went to the kitchen after getting dressed. I ate my cereal. It was Cinnamon Toast. Then I made my own lunch, I put the sandwiches, chip, and two water bottles in my bag. It was going to be so hot today! We need to get our good energy. We can’t get sick or headaches.

We were supposed to be leaving here at around 8am but we didn’t and we left here at 9am. I took a nap for a while in the living room because I was so tired. We were in a van for almost 2 hours to get there. I was starting read my black resource book to get ready for Mt. St. Helen because it was the girls’ were turn to take our report about it. The boys’ group were turn to their visuals.

Nancy offered to drive instead of Barbara because Barbara drove slowly because she was stared constantly at the volcano. She was fascinated at it. Finally, we got there but before that we went to closer it during Nancy drove and my eyes were opened and wide because Mt. St. Helens was so huge!! My jaw dropped! All of us took pictures of it. It was beautiful but I saw some snow on top of it. It was around 18-25 feet of snow at the peak.

We arrived there, I was in the van with air conditioner on in it then we went outside and I felt so hot and so dry outside. As we reached Mt. St. Helens, it was a huge. I mean I couldn’t believe I saw it. Before I went there I was scared to see it because at the last time it erupted in May 18, 1980 and 57 people are dead from Mt. St. Helens blast that buried on them. I don’t want to be like that and I was freaking out. We were 5 miles away from it. It was a very close. We went inside the building with a lot of stuff about Mt. St. Helens. We decided to go to the theater movie first. We watched it for about 20 minutes. It was about how it happened. It was awesome and fascinating. When I watched it and my eyes are tired again but lucky, I didn’t sleep at all! I AM PROUD OF MYSELF! We also were so happy because it has closed captioning on this movie. The last time we watched the movie about Lewis and Clark yesterday and it didn’t have closed captioning.

OTR Sixth Day

All I have to say is what a HOT and EXHAUSTED day! I am very appreciative to have that wonderful opportunity to go to the Mt. St. Helens today. It is such a beautiful place to go and an awesome place where the people can enjoy. Also, now I FINALLY know what Mt. St. Helens looks like and I am so proud for us and myself that we did actually come to Mt. St. Helens today. We always wanted to see the REAL Mt. St. Helens instead of the seeing the pictures, it is completely different.

Today, I woke up at 5:15am myself, but later on I slept again and woke up at 7am. Then, I decided to wake the girls up and be ready for today. Angelina seemed ready for today but Jessica didn’t. She told me please wake me up in 10 more minutes and I was like oh okay but remember we need to leave early today. All of sudden, she stayed awake and got ready! We got dressed, ate our breakfast, and made our own lunch for today. Some of us ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cheerios cereal for breakfast and also, we made the same food as yesterday for our lunch; sandwiches, chips, water and Snapple Iced Tea. When we were done with that, Jessica was kind of complaining about no time for washing her clothes because she was busy all the time and during night time too. So she decided to put her clothes and my clothes, together, in the laundry machine this early morning. Around 10 minutes later, we packed everything of what we need to bring with us then walked to the van and got ready to go to Mt. St. Helens. When we were ready to go, I couldn’t even wait to see Mt. St. Helens!

It is long way to get there, some of us seem so tired except me, and I was full of energy! But later on, I got a headache and I didn’t feel well a little bit because of the crazy road goes like curving all the time and I really hate it! But, I was really fascinated and kept looking at the GORGEOUS trees, the Toutle River, and Mt. St. Helens too. So attractive and unbelievable! Mt. St. Helens is pretty huge and the way it looks, is not lovely at all because on the top of that mountain was already destroyed on May 18, 1980, when the volcano exploded

When we got there, we walked to the Visitor’s Center, to stop by and go to the bathroom. Then, the theater starts in only 3 minutes. We all gathered together and found seats to sit in and waited for the theater to start. This theater place, it is pretty nice, big enough for more than around 170 people. When the theater started, the sound from the video about Mt. St. Helen is pretty loud with the vibration as well. This video had really touched my heart and I couldn’t even imagine if I was there and saw the volcano eruption. That would terrify me a lot! This video shows us about the volcano erupted in the past, and how it changed. It is not the same as before because of what happened after it finished erupting. It is such a cool video with a good display, a lot of good pictures and the way it’s designed and the sounds. When it was finished, on the video screen, it says “please remain seated” and I was like um okay… we waited for a minute and suddenly, the big red curtains pulled themselves open up and let us see Mt. St. Helens through the huge window. That was so cool!

When we came out of this room and saw many pictures about Mt. St. Helens, the real rocks that were made by the lava, a destroyed tree, the people who have experienced seeing the volcano erupting, and they had to struggle to save their lives. It is really interesting to read all of the information of what happened to the several people who saw the volcano exploded and what they did. There’s one part that seems unbelievable to me is that when the volcano exploded, the landslide went 17 miles away. That is way too far! We stayed there for about an hour and then we went outside and listened to the Ranger tell us about Mt. St. Helens in the past, to the present, and everything. It was about 30 minutes listening to him present.

Oh boy, it is our lunch time! Nancy already found a good place for us to sit on the floor with the shade to cover us, which is cooler instead of being HOT and sweaty. We just sat, ate our food, chatted, and kept looking at Mt. St. Helens. It’s just so amazing to sit and look at it. Then, all of us walked together on the trail for about one mile, just for relaxation, and walking around for little bit. Then, we walked to the van and went on the way to the small parking lot. We stopped there and we all walked, following a hummock trail that goes to meet the North Fork Toutle River. We didn’t get there; we stopped at the middle of the hummock trail and went back to the van because we were all tired. While we were on the way to a place to see where the people could go and learn how to plant the “baby trees” on the ground or something. I didn’t go there, same as Richie, because we slept in the van and the other kids went there with Barbara and Anne. Richie and I were so tired so we slept in the van. That’s too bad that I missed it.

Finally, we are on the way back to WSD dorm, I just couldn’t wait to finish up all my work, and then go to SLEEP! When we came back to the dorm, we ate the savory dinner; chicken, salad mixed with the spaghetti, corn, and lemonade. The boys ate some fries; all of us girls were full already!

That’s all what we have done today, it is wonderful day and I had good time sleeping in the van today too. (laughing) Talk to you guys tomorrow! Adios!

Journal day 6: June 26, 2006

Today was kind of different as to where we are going. Well I woke up at about 7 am, got dressed, and then went to breakfast. I was so tired I didn’t want to get up but I knew I had to get up because we were supposed to be leaving around 8 and I still had to eat and make my lunch. For breakfast was cereal. After breakfast, we made our lunches of sandwiches, chips, and juice/iced tea. Around 9 oC, o’clock, we left for Mt. St. Helen.

The ride was about 2 hours and also we made a few stops for the restroom and also so we can take some really good pictures of the volcano.  It was unbelievable how big it was and how up close we were to St. Helens.  Also, I remember seeing a gorgeous waterfall one time when we stopped to take pictures. We finally arrived around 11 oC, and some of us used the restroom because there was no restroom on the way there because it is so high up, around 3,000 ft. high.

We all went into the visitor’s center to see a movie about how Mt. St. Helens erupted and how it destroyed everything. I was so fascinated to see how the volcano erupted and what exactly it looked like. It looked like a huge cloud was roiling, very fast, destroying everything. There is no other way I can really describe what it looked liked besides a gigantic enraged cloud. It was just so amazing to see what really happened and not just hearing what other people say about it. When the ranger was talking, a huge rock rolled down the side of the crater and he pointed it out to us, also there was steam always coming out of the crater. Most of the stuff that the ranger was talking about, I had no idea what he meant because he was using scientific words and measurements. It was crazy!!! But the things that I did understand were really interesting.

When he was done talking, we took our noon photo with the ranger. After that we took our “day six” photo, and then we ate lunch. Most of us sat in the shade because it was so hot out, up to 102 degrees today! Unbelievable, it hasn’t been this hot here in a long time!!! I’m guessing that the east and the west switched weather, because it usually rains here and it is hot there but now it is the opposite! But it’s better than having it rain the whole time we were here, heeheehee.

After lunch was over, we walked on a trail that they had there. It was about one mile all together. I didn’t want to walk that much because I was so tired and didn’t feel like walking that long, even though it wasn’t that long compared to most of the hikes I been on. But I did it anyway because if I didn’t then I would still be there right now, which wouldn’t be a good thing. Then we all left to go to another trail that we walked about one mile on as well. Some of us didn’t want to go because we were all so tired and exhausted. But we went anyway because it was good exercise and also because the staff said we had to. Then we were on our way back to Washington School for the Deaf, but we had to stop at the store to get already cooked chicken for dinner tonight. At that time I was really hungry and couldn’t wait for dinner.

When we got back to the cottage, I worked on the investigation and finished it while the staff cooked the dinner for us. When dinnertime came, I was so thrilled because I was SO hungry. The dinner was so good, I really loved the salad. The salad was like a regular salad except it had noodles added to it. Ohh it was so delicious!!!! I can’t remember the last time I had such good salad.

When dinner was finished, I help clean up a little bit, and then I got my laundry from the drier and put it away. Then I been working on my journal and now I’m done so I’ll see what happens tomorrow and let you know about it! Talk to you guys later!!!