Having a "Blast", Wish You Were Here

Mount St. Helen

We went on an unexpected and extended road trip this past weekend. We wanted to take our mountain bikes out and there isn't much under 90 minutes away. We were prepared for about that until we got within 5 miles of the trailhead and read the sign (Road Closed 500 yards ahead). Well, SH#@!. So, I hurriedly flipped through our little Portland MTB pocket book and found one up the road another hour. Okay, so we're already out here, let's just do it. It really turned out to be more like 1.5 hours, but who's counting. Did I mention we were around Mount St. Helen? Well, we were, so it WAS worth it.

This second choice ride ended up being awesome. The trail went through the Mt. St. Helen "blast zone". It was quite surreal riding through pumice rock and dead pine trees, but quite a sight. It was sort of frustrating, as there were a lot of trees down and we couldn't quite finish the trail because of a downed bridge, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. We found out that pumice rock floats in water.

This was a pretty cool shot of some dead trees in the blast zone.

I had to share some more canning shots. Tonight after the weekly farmer's market run, we canned 7 pints of salsa and 4 quarts of "dilly beans". This past weekend I made 6 pints of plum chutney as well. Some of you may be getting some homemade goods in your stocking this year...



Until next time.......A&L