Cathy and I are just back from a roadtrip through the USA Pacific North West. Our 1300 mile route begins and ends in Seattle, Washington, with stops in Vancouver, Washington nearby the Columbia River and Mt St Helens, to Etna (formerly called Rough and Ready) in ranch country in Northern California, on to a second ranch east of Mount Shasta again in Northern California, then on to Bend Oregon and the Obsidian Flow, and finally back to Seattle. This is our first roadtrip in this area. For Cathy it brought back memories of her youth living in the high desert of Idaho, and heading over to the Tetons for skiing, camping and hiking, and is a chance to meet up with school friends and cousins after many years. For me, it was all about good company, great scenery, very hot weather, and local steak.
Our route took us past volcanic lava fields, obsidian flows, some of the highest volcanic peaks in the Cascades – Mt St Helens, Mt Ranier, Mt Hood and Mt Shasta. Late August and all of these still have snow peaks. For Cathy and me, the most interesting is Mt St Helens, that exploded in 1980 while we were travelling from the Dakotas to Butte, Montana and on to Yellowstone. The eruption came out of the side of the caldera and so spead ash ground level that covered everything. First thing in Butte was to change oil, oil filter and air filter. Spending a day touring the site and seeing the fractured caldera was most interesting after 45 years. The scars are still there. Make time for the Visitor Centers, they explain everything.
