The weather cleared during the night and we awoke to a gorgeous day with just a few tiny clouds. Our visibility woes gone, we decided to take a spin up to Mount St. Helens or what is left of her. Back in May of 1980, St. Helens put on a spectacular show when the mountain exploded, blowing away the northern slope, lopping 1800 feet off the peak and knocking down 200 square miles of Weyerhaeuser’s timber. The massive earth movement re-contoured the Toutle River upper valley, buried many square miles of timber under 150 feet of ash and sent many lahars down the lower Toutle blocking it, the Cowlitz and ultimately depositing tons of slop into the Columbia River. Fifty-some folks were killed and the damage was 1.1 billion dollars in 1980 bucks.
When we arrived, the weather cooperated by being quite clear. Plainly visible from many spots along the park road are the remains of absolute devastation. Almost all the terrain on the north and west sides of the mountain remains almost completely devoid of any vegetation. The Toutle River is busy carving new channels through the gigantic ash deposits. The water in the Toutle is the gray color of the ash. Flat areas, however, are regenerating a rich habitat and many critters have colonized the area.
We finally made it to the end of the WA-504 which terminates at the Johnston Ridge Visitor Center and Observatory. The views of St. Helens four miles from the visitor center are stunning. There is a big bulge on the crater floor where the mountain has tried to rebuild itself. The top of the bulge has a big crack in it which emanates steam visible for miles. From the visitor center 11,000 foot plus Mount Adams a bit further east can also be seen. It is also a volcano. We could see a small elk herd wandering around on the newly reconfigured Toutle watershed.
As we departed, we spotted what appeared to be massive slides on the lower west slope of St. Helens that put up plumes of dust visible for at least 7 miles. This may have been the only time in my life where I actually get to see some geology happening.
We exited the park to the west and soon arrived in Toledo where we turned off to finish our drive home along the north shore of the Cowlitz River. We found a spectacular view from this road where we could see the volcanoes Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams from a single location. We are delighted with the clear weather.
We didn’t do too well on our animal sightings today. We spotted some vultures, a hawk, an osprey and a partially flattened porcupine on the yellow lines of WA-504. Can’t win ’em all.
Some pictures of this amazing place can be seen by clicking here

Today we decided to go up the Cowlitz River to see Cowlitz Falls. We have never explored this area before so we were stoked.
We started out by heading east up WA-12 to the area around Randal where we turned off to the south. Wandering down to the Cowlitz we did find a terrific park called Cowlitz Falls Day Use Area where we stopped for a great picnic alongside the river.
After lunch we continued our search for Cowlitz Falls but we were unsuccessful. Many roads were traveled but the Falls remained elusive. After considerable wandering, we drove down to a dam and found a nice interpretive sign at the very end of the road. The sign indicated that the dam, which was built in the last century, had been built on the former location of Cowlitz Falls and the Falls really do not exist anymore. The dam had all the gates closed: they were not even letting any water out so it was pretty unimpressive.
The drives today were superb, passing through gorgeous country but we can’t explain why Cowlitz Falls is not called Cowlitz NoFalls or Even Water.
See the pictures by clicking here

Today we were slugs all day, partly due to rain in the morning. Maybe the rain will knock down the smoke that has filled regional skies for the last 10 days or so and perhaps the embattled firefighters in eastern Washington will get a break. We hung around the trailer all day watching movies. I dumped the tanks. We were boring and loved every minute.

After our long drive through spectacular scenery yesterday, we chose to stay a bit closer to camp today. But, as we were performing our morning ritual of coffee and breakfast, our long-suffering coffee maker gasped its last and refused to function. Two years of servitude at our house and then three plus years on the road with us and the old Black & Decker crapped out. They just don’t make a good $19 coffee maker anymore.
We were able to overcome the temporary inconvenience but by afternoon, we were on the way to the Centralia Outlets to find a store called Kitchen Wossname and we now possess a $25 Mr. Coffee in white. Peggy also coerced me into going to a DXL store where garments for tall, lardass types can be found. Peggy’s intent was to find some cotton shorts for me but found only a few T-shirts for her uncooperative and recalcitrant husband. Tragic, eh?
Our timing was good because, after the dreadful clothes shopping, we wandered over to the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum and purchased tickets for a ride on the old steam locomotive powered tourist train. We settled into some seats on the outward-facing wooden benches installed in a long hopper car for the ride to our destination, the whereabouts of which were a bit hazy.
The ride, which costs $17 a head, is a slow trip through some beautiful agricultural land with views that are not available from any road. The tracks pass through heavily wooded corridors of forest and pasture alongside the Chehalis River which, strangely, flows east. It must dump into the Cowlitz before making its way south to the Columbia and the Pacific. I am remarkably ignorant about the local area geography despite spending ample time in this locale.
Our engineer for the trip was a fervent steam whistle blower and it is plainly evident why after hearing it. It was not only terrifyingly loud but also shot out an amazingly impressive cloud of steam which would blast leaves off the branches of the overhanging shade trees. I am sure everyone in the county was aware the train was moving.
Our 5:00 PM train was also a dinner train and, if you paid $50 for the ride, you could have a fancy crystal and white linen dinner served to you in the attached dining car. We did not choose that option so I can’t comment on the food. I took a train ride from San Diego to Eugene, Oregon, a few years ago and I can say for a fact that Amtrak’s food is terrible. The dining car on today’s train was full so I guess the food must be better.
After a couple hours we rolled back into the station in Chehalis and took the 30 mile ride back home to Paradise. The smoke from the fires that have plagued us for the last two weeks is clearing and both Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens were clearly visible. They are very substantial and absolutely gorgeous.
There’s pix. Click here

Today we started to get a bit antsy about waiting for the horrible smoke from eastern state fires to clear. The fires east of us continue to emit gigantic smog clouds that have obscured most of western Washington. We have considerable sympathy for the dedicated public servants and maybe prisoners that are enduring hot weather, unfavorable winds and crippling heat battling dreadful fires in eastern WA and BC.
We decided to ignore the possibilities of crummy visibility and head east to cross the southern slope of Mount Rainier. We started on WA-12 right near our campground and almost immediately commenced the slow climb into the Cascades. We shot by Mossyrock, Morton, Randle and Packwood before turning off on WA-123 into Mount Rainier National Park. In Packwood, we found a tall roadside woodcarving of someone who appeared to be Jesus toting a double-bitted ax. A few miles up 123 and we turned west on WA-706 toward Paradise and Longmire, two communities on the massive south slope.
We switchbacked up Stevens Ridge until we came around a corner at about 5000 feet elevation and Rainier came into view. The road from Stevens Ridge toward Rainier is bordered by absolutely stunning scenery with luscious vistas, many creeks and rivers, glaciers and gigantic volcanic formations. Mount Rainier, a volcano, makes the rest of the surrounding Cascade Mountains look like poorly nourished runts, albeit gorgeous. 14,411 foot tall Rainier is the big kingpin of volcanoes around this state which also boasts having Mount Baker, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens which blew 1300 feet off its head on May 18, 1980 in a spectacular demonstration of how puny man is. Rainier has not erupted since 1894 but the violence from the last blast is evident and the terrain is still being altered by glaciation, ice, and both water and wind erosion. Evidence of massive, rock-filled lahars can be easily spotted in the Nisqually River Valley near Paradise.
At Paradise, we pulled off the road for a picnic and few places could be more dramatic than this place for cheap dining. We sat with a large raven ogling our lunch and an amazing view of Rainier. All along the south slope, waterfalls gurgle and thunder away and evidence of violent geological change is plainly evident. Huge ravines full of giant boulders show where the snowmelt livens things up after each year’s thaw. Rivers in this area wander along in 100 foot or more deep crevices carved through solid rock. The forests dotted across the slope have never been logged and they are truly beautiful to explore. The earth is definitely open for business on the slopes of Mount Rainier.
It is unlikely we could have picked a better place to explore today on our 38th wedding anniversary. The smoke from the fires still lingers in this region but it would take a lot more haze to obscure the fantastic sights in the national park. This is certainly another bucket list drive. here
We took a few pictures along the way and you can see ’em if you click here

Today we took a cruise down the Cowlitz River. We took the roads that we figured would keep us closest to the river’s northern edge and we were pretty successful. The drives down Washington’s rivers draining the Cascades have been universally spectacular.
Eventually we crossed I-5 going west and arrived in the small town of Winlock. Winlock looks like it was a manufacturing powerhouse back in the old days but it appears to be pretty placid now with gorgeous old residences surrounding a cute main one-way street. Strangely, many folks in Winlock feel compelled to have oversize fiberglass chickens installed throughout the downtown area. Of course, with that many chickens around they felt they should also have an egg so, after almost no searching, we found a massive fiberglass ovoid item atop a pipe column with an interpretive sign beneath it indicating it was the “World’s Largest Egg” despite the resin and silicate construction. I suppose it could be the world’s largest egg-shaped facsimile of an egg but I am not so sure about it being an egg or functional. Perhaps they have lots of chickens and egg production in Winlock but we sure didn’t smell any.
Chicken pictures here

Today was a workday. Not a workday in the normal sense, where we perform productive labor and end up with a finished product albeit ugly. Today we drove the 50 or 60 miles into Olympia and back in order to impoverish ourselves at Costco and Trader Joe’s.
We got out of Costco for less than $300 and less than $150 at T. Joe’s. I am not a good shopper because I hate it in all its forms. Peggy, however, is a magnificent shopper and I’m glad she was with me because otherwise I would still be there.
Other than the drives and the horrible forays into retail hell, we were boring and you wouldn’t want to read about it unless you are particularly strange.

Our day started with the sound of a very hard-working diesel pulling up the road past our camp spot. When we got real nosy and peered out the window, we were rewarded with long views of the biggest fifth wheel RV / truck combination we have ever seen. The truck was originally a Ford F-350 but it had been customized in such a way that it had three, full-size doors on each side. It had dual rear wheels. The trailer was so massive that it required three axles instead of the typical two. When he pulled up to the second sanitary dump station, his estate blocked both the second and the first. While 8 tires is enough for us, he had 12. I’ll bet running his rig down a narrow, serpentine road must be thrilling for all 10 passengers and every oncoming motorist. He appeared to exceed 65 feet in length.
We made another stab at sightseeing today but were again plagued by the smoke from the terrible fires in eastern WA. Always handy with alternatives, we chose instead to go to Lisa’s Diner in nearby Onalaska. We have always been served very tasty food there and today was no exception. The prices are great, too. After that, considering the curtailed visibility, we chose to cruise down many local back roads checking out the scenery.
While this part of Washington does seem to have a large population of toothless folks who appear to be current or reformed tweakers (amphetamine addicts) and live in private junkyards, there are also many tidy estate holders and farmers who have magnificent residences built in this beautiful pasture and forest country. We went out looking for them and were able to identify maybe only about 100 places we would love to own as long as we didn’t have to do the maintenance work.
We shot pictures of the monster RV and what could be Peggy’s dream house. Click here

Despite fires in eastern Washington sending all their smoke west, we decided to take a little spin south to the nearby Cowlitz River. We found some great viewpoints that are alongside the river so we could see it.
Our drive initially took us from our RV spot in Silver Creek west to a place called Mary’s Corner to buy fuel. Turning south, the first interesting thing we saw was the Jackson Cabin, a historical landmark where the extraordinarily tough pioneers to this area used to stop on their way from the Columbia River, up the Cowlitz until paddling became fruitless and then on foot to the Puget Sound area. The Jackson Cabin apparently served as a rest stop, a court room, a store, a dining opportunity and a general meeting place for all the folks stealing the land from those pesky Indians.
We continued south through Lewis and Clark State Park until we hit the north bank of the Cowlitz where we turned east up the river road. The state of Washington has installed fish hatcheries on the north shore. At the first hatchery we came across, we went down to the boat ramp to scope out the river and were delighted to find a pair of mature bald eagles within range of our cameras.
At the state salmon hatchery a bit further west we found a barrier dam (actually just a big smooth spillway) where the entire volume of the Cowlitz becomes a 100-yard wide perfect waterfall. The water below the barrier dam was quite low so we could wander right down to the edge of the river. It is quite beautiful here. It would probably even look better if we could just see a bit further through the smoke.
We got pix. Click here

This year’s trip has been different than previous years. In the previous years, we stayed on the move and covered long distances with fairly short stops at each locale. This year, due to some scheduling constraints, we chose to use a different approach. We covered short distances with long stays in each region.
We have stayed this year in many places for a week which did not occur in 2014 to 2016. There are a few spots where we have stayed two weeks and here in Paradise is one of them. The benefits to the pocketbook are pretty substantial because our fuel costs are lower and some private campgrounds give us a discount for longer stays.
However, longer stays also allow us to hang around the trailer all day on some dates because we are not obliged to always be doing something. Today was one of those days. Very little exploring or discovering or productive labor of any sort bothered us today. I checked the oil and filled the washer on the truck. We set up our barbecue. Some beer was consumed. Some whiskey, too.
We could have gone sightseeing but raging fires in eastern Washington are currently saturating the air of western Washington with grey, vision-blocking smog that has cut visibility to about 2 miles. It has also been unseasonably hot and to avoid being fricasseed, we have stayed real close to our trailer with ample conditioning. We were awful uninteresting today.