Kelso, WA

DANG!

It's official, we take the ferry to Alaska on July 3. Today was productive, we booked the ferry and have our next two stops reserved. After that we played a bit. Went into town and found the Nutty Narrows Bridge, created to save squirrels from the busy street. Didn't see any on the bridge but it did crack us up. Sara and T, you would love it! Nearby was the squirrel statue. Both were by a really great park with walkways and commemorative statues for the settlers of Longview. We then went to Mount St Helens. The visitors center has every part of the eruption documented. Amazing what the eruption did to the area. Trees felled and looking like toothpicks tossed around. All along the road there are signs that tell when the trees were planted. It looks like nothing happened today. The Toutle River is still opaque looking because of the silt and ash. We didn't bother going to the summit since it was cloudy with off and on showers. We wouldn't have been able to see the crater so only went half way up. The Sediment Retention Structure was a bust. It was abandoned. We did walk to the look out but it was overgrown and we could barely see the wall. We could have walked to the wall itself but it was a mile one way and the weather was to iffy to do it. Sara, raccoon wouldn't pose so no picture. He scooted across the road so Dad wouldn't run him over ;-)