Day 5

Rhonda and Brett spent the morning at Aunite Nancy and Uncle Doug's house sorting out their newly washed laundry and getting a shower in. You never know when your next shower will be on the road, a fact that Rhonda is trying to deal with. After breakfast and coffee and tea over discussion of dogs and dogsledding, we packed the truck and got ready to leave. We said our goodbyes to Auntie Nancy and Robert, started the new GPS navigator, and set off back on the road. Destination: Mount St. Helen's National Volcanic Monument. Nothing like a volcano and devastation to up the fun content on a roadtrip. However, we needed to make a quick stop at a local Wal-Mart for a disposable cellphone, some highlighters for the map, and a container for all our US change. The only container that really suited our needs was a Wonderbread sandwich container. Insert witty comment here. Hey, Rhonda thinks it's cool. We also wanted to get an expansion card for our GPS with fully updated maps, but they didn't have any. Rhonda is worried that the GPS unit is making her completely useless and without purpose. She suspects that if Brett could find the expansion card that allows the machine to have conversations and compliment him, she'd be very quickly left at the next rest stop.

After driving from the Tri-Cities to Yakimaw, WA, we headed southwest through the beautiful Wenatchee National Forest. It's a rugged highway, treed with evergreens and a small brook that runs parallel to the highway. Before long, we found ourselves in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, just south of Mount Rainier. It's an interesting highway in the fact that instead of sticking to the lowlands, it climbs the sides of these huge hills and gorges, offering spectacular views. Then as you round a corner on the highway, out of nowhere is Mount Hood, a giant snow-capped mountain (little did we know at the time that it's actually a volcano). Brett had a lot of fun dring the twists and turns and Rhonda tried to not read all of the road signs out loud.

We continued along the highway, stopping for directions in Packwood, WA, then continuing on down the road into Randle, WA. After looking at the local RV campgrounds (which were all nothing more than glorified parking lots), we found a small but nice and quiet RV park just east of Randle, which was treed and fully serviced. The owner gave us a deal for the night: $20 for the night and a bundle of firewood. The normal rate would have been $21.35. Cool! Maybe it was because we were Canadian or peerhaps it is because we are just simply charming.

We had dinner at a roadside cafe that featured "The best chicken and jojo's". Curious as to what a jojo was, Rhonda ordered their special: 4 pieces of chicken and 4 jojo's (for only $10), while Brett opted for a chicken fried steak and fries. We soon found out that a jojo is a giant potato wedge, seasoned with plenty of salt and cajun spice. Delicious! Brett finished most of his meal, but poor Rhonda had almost half of her meal left over. We boxed up the remainder, grabbed some groceries (which of course, included a 6-pack of Rolling Rock beer), and headed up to Mount St. Helen's.

We had asked at a local tourist booth how long the drive up to the volcano was. On a map, it's maybe 25 miles as the crow flies. However, the road up to it is a winding, twisting, turning series of switchbacks that go up a ridge, which turns it into a 1 1/2 hour drive up and another 1 1/2 hours back down. It ends at Windy Ridge, a lookout over the blast area of the volcano when it erupted in 1980. We set off out of Randle at around 6: 30 PM.

The first half of the road up takes you through some close forest lanes that twist and turn. You can get up to about 60 mph in some small stretches, but you need to slow right down to 20 mph to turn around the switchbacks. The second half of the road is almost all twists and turns; you don't dare go over 40 mph on this road, or you'll end up like Thelma and Louise. The scenery on this part of the road alternates between old-growth forest and a nuclear bomb site. It's an eerie feeling to see all of the trees laying down in the same direction, away from the volcano that looms in the distance. Eventually, we made it up to the end of the road at Windy Ridge. They don't lie! A cold, stiff breeze greeted us as we exited the Nissan. From the vantage point we had, Mount St. Helen's displayed its open caldera, the active part of the volcano. The caldera of a volcano is normally only seen from the top. In the case of this volcano, half of the mountain was obliterated which allowed easy viewing of the mini-cone caldera of the volcano. The blast left quite a path of destruction. All the land before the open part of the volcano is laid to waste, almost as barren as the moon. We took lots of pictures of the volcano, ourselves and the volcano, and even some of Brett snacking on Rhonda's leftover chicken against a backdrop of sheer destruction.

The trip back down to Randle was pretty tiring for Brett, as he had clutched and shifted all the way up the mountain for an hour and a half. It was no different on the way back down. Some of the bumps got the better of Rhonda, but she held back the tears (and the complaints) like a good trooper. We arrived back in Randle at around 9:30. Another night, another campfire. Trip meter: 400 kms, including the trip to and from Mt. St. Helen's.