We started the day with a trip to Spiffy’s, a restaurant I had been interested in ever since reading about them on the net and in the Paradise RV’s blurb. I wanted to go there a couple days ago but we had gone instead to Lisa’s Diner in Onalaska where they have excellent food. Peggy graciously agreed to go to Spiffy’s and we started our exploration for today by driving the 15 miles to their parking lot.
My desire to eat here was diminished somewhat after we had their food. First, we encountered a truly frightening looking waitress who took our order. When she finally returned with the food, my disappointment began. The chicken fried steak looked strange and was nestled in a slurry of bone-colored gravy. It was crummy. Peggy had a scramble with red potatoes and sausage but the sausage turned out to be slices of weiners, maybe left over from last night’s kiddy special. My hash browns were nominal; they looked like they were derived from potatoes but they were strangely tasteless. Prices were pretty reasonable until one remembers that the price should reflect the food quality. In that case, the place was a gyp.
Today we were able to make a second visit in four days to Mount St. Helens, which produced some inconvenient and devastating effects when it erupted in May, 1980. Our trip to St. Helens a few days ago (see September 1 entry) took us along the north and east side of St. Helens and the now-devastated Spirit Lake. Despite the low clouds obscuring the top 3000 feet of the volcano, it was still a magnificent drive through the mountains to the numerous overlooks where you can gaze at this monstrous stratovolcano. It is a bit less strato- since 1980 because the eruption blew 1300 feet off the top.
Today we approached from the west, driving up the Toutle River. From the Johnston Ridge Volcanic Observatory, our furthest destination, amazing views of the collapsed northern face, the crater, Spirit Lake and the remarkable devastation remaining from the eruption can be seen. Massive areas that used to be canyons were filled with millions of tons of exploded rock and ash, completely revising the old terrain. Ash deposits hundreds of feet deep have been cut by glacial melt and rain flows, changing the layouts of entire rivers, including the Toutle. The Observatory, despite being many miles from the volcano, is surrounded with the effects of the scouring action of blasted rock passing over the landscape at 300 miles per hour for more than 3 minutes. The soil is gone from large sections of terrain, exposing the bedrock beneath. All the windfall timber leveled by the blast points in the same direction. Nothing of the old pre-eruption terrain exists anymore. It must have been a big wallop. Very few folks in the area survived the eruption.
After a few hours of enjoying the fantastic views of the volcano and surrounding, mixed-up country, we headed back to Silver Creek and our RV spot at Paradise. Not too much later, we left the trailer and headed north to South Sound Speedway for an evening of mishap-filled stock car racing. The evening was filled with much crazy driving and numerous crashes but, by the time we left at 10:30, nobody had been killed.
We got a few pix around the mountain and you can see some of them if you click here