Trip Report West Coast Craziness Day 4 - Mount St Helens & getting lost in Snoqualmie

[seobaina]

Morning started off well. We were staying in Vancouver, Washington state and the motel was nice and clean. The only major issue was having no lift/elevator but we survived with our growing pile of bags.

We grabbed a starbucks from just down the road and a some breakfast. I had a croissant and Andy tried some kind of pumpkin bread which apparently was more like cake. Then, as we were so close we headed to Fort Vancouver.

It was early and most of the park hadn't opened yet, but I'd really just wanted to see the Grant house and it was on route so this didn't bother us. It was about 8:30-9am I think. We drove to the visitors centre, grabbed some leaflets and then went down to the Fort area first. LOVELY day weather wise

The grounds were really nice here too

Pumpkins Sorry to the Americans but we don't see this in the UK generally, at least not near me.

Although the fort wasn't open yet we wandered down to the entrance.

Then we headed over to Officers Row.

I pulled into the parking lot in front of one of Grants House to take a picture. It's a restaurant in there now so I didn't want to go in but I wanted to see it.

This was when we had a 'huh?' moment lol. I went to exit the small lot by the wrong entrance. Sorry, Brit here, everything is backwards. Of course, the second I do this the quiet road gets cars and a woman stops her 4x4 to turn in to where I am. Andy was filming so this is all on tape lol but instead of letting me out so she could pull in, she immediately starts shouting and waving her arms at me and then pulls off to the next lot along and pulls into there instead. It took her longer to do all that than to just let me out so yep, you do have me on tape calling her all sorts of names for being so stupid lol. We were both very amused by her complete over-reaction. Yep I was in the wrong place but shesh...somebody hadn't had her coffee that morning obviously. gig:

We left Vancouver behind and headed up the interstate to Mount Saint Helens. We stopped briefly at the visitors centre, which is actually about an hour down the road from volcano itself. They had a webcam there that showed the live feed from the top and my heart sank because there were low clouds blocking most of the view of the volcano. I was, at this point, beginning to think we were cursed. However, the woman behind the desk told us that the weather changes quickly and was supposed to be nice soon, so we decided to head on up anyway.

As we got back to the car we sat down for a moment to check the route and I froze. Andy looked at me and then twigged. From behind us was a buzzing. I'm not allergic but bees and wasps are my phobia. Normally I'm fine but not in an enclosed space lol so I started opening the door and then Andy said 'go, keep going'. I shot out as he exited the other side. A bee then flew on to my (now empty) starbucks cup that was in-between the front seats. I don't like being near them but I don't want to kill them either so Andy brought the cup slowly out and put it on top of the car. We then paused and looked at it because it didn't move and there was no bin/trash nearby. Luckily as we were debating what to do it did eventually fly away and Andy ran the cups to a bin back at the centre. We then did a dramatic dive into the car, shutting the doors behind us before another bee could decide to hitchhike with us

Drama over we headed up to the volcano. Andy had a bit of jetlag so on route he stayed mostly in the car whilst I hopped in and out taking photos and video. This was the elk view point.

Stunning but no elk in sight. On route to the viewpoint there were signs on the rail stating 'do not grab, bees'. This freaked me a little but I didn't see any so there I am happily taking a series of photos in order to make a panoramic shot and a bee flies straight at me. This is what happens when the photographer freaks mid photo taking

I eventually recovered my composure and got away from the bee lol

See though...

 

[seobaina]

We continued on up to the volcano and the weather was getting better...cold but sunny.

Then finally we got to the volcano itself and our hope was rewarded as the clouds had lifted enough for us to the see the crater.

We did giggle a little as a couple came and stood next to us and the man said 'so which is mount saint Helens?' His wife pointed it out and he said 'I thought it was that one' pointing the other way. His wife said no, it's that one and he said 'And all the damage was on the other side of the volcano right'. We're looking at Mount Saint Helens and the huge section missing thinking 'really?'. I mean, it's not exactly hidden lol

We took some photos outside of the volcano and the lava tracks. It's quite sobering to see the routes even now after all these years.

Then we headed inside to the warmth.

Although we'd actually seen what we had wanted too, we had also paid as we entered the observatory so we figured we'd go and watch the first of two movies about the eruption. I'm glad we did because it was interesting and ends very dramatically. Then we went back outside to take a few more pics before heading back down the looooooooong road to the interstate.

We stopped a couple more times on the way down so I could take some more pics (yes, I am a photoholic).

Back on the interstate we headed on to Snoqualmie.

 

[seobaina]

I should probably start by saying that Andy is a massive Twin Peaks fan. For those that don't know it's a tv show and apparently it was filmed in Snoqualmie. I left Andy to make all the plans for here, which was probably not wise as they don't sign post anything in Snoqualmie or North Bend...and by anything I mean anything. No road names, nothing!

First stop we did find was Snoqualmie Falls. They are beautiful and very high.

Andy from this point on, grinned like a Cheshire Cat for the day.

We had a look around the hotel, which apparently was in the show too. I'm afraid I'm not the best guide for this bit cause I watched the show as a kid but don't remember much about it.

We drove around the two adjoining towns looking for sites that still remained from the show. Andy was like a little kid lol he got so excited at everything. This is Laura's Log (apparently)

We found the famous diner so yep, we went inside.

It was about 5pm so we were hungry anyway. But not sure how Andy was planing to eat this...

But he kept room for the cherry pie (I'm not a cherry fan so I had a chocolate one, which was lovely)

This is probably the only place we found that actually played on the Twin Peaks theme. They had pictures etc on the walls. Gotta say too that the waitress was lovely and the food was good!

Having eaten we drove around looking for more sites. It was getting darker by the second but we were on a mission. This isn't a site, I just thought it was pretty

 

[seobaina]

I don't have any photos from here on in cause it was dark. We drove to find the mill next and it proved somewhat of a challenge. After driving round a round many small unsign-posted roads we ended up on a dirt track that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It had no-tresspassing signs so I started to turn around when a security car came into view.

The security guard smiled as I wound down the wind and said 'lost?'. I nodded and pointing to Andy said "yep, sorry, he's a big Twin Peaks fan so we were trying to find the Mill". The guard pointed at the building area behind with all the security signs and said "that is the mill". I was about to say "oh well, thank you anyway' when he added, "I'm supposed to chase you away but if you want to park up just there you can go in and have a look". We did a double "really?" and when he nodded we said a ton of thank yous and headed over to the gate. I felt slightly concerned that the guy was breaking the rules for us so I figured it would be quicker if Andy went in on his own...he was the fan after all. So I stayed by the car whilst he took off. The security car waited a minute and then drove off.

That's when it got spooky. Andy was gone about twenty minutes or so. That doesn't sound long but when you are alone in a car in the middle of nowhere it is! Especially when Andy had disappeared out of sight down an old dirt road. I don't normally get too spooked by things but sitting on my own in a car for a long time my brain started thinking. Andy had disappeared completely out-of-sight very quickly. When he didn't appear I started thinking of things like 'what if there were guard dogs' or 'what if he's fallen and hurt himself' or even 'what if there is a mad axe murdered' lol.

The area itself didn't help because with it getting dark it was like something out of a horror movie in terms of the 'old half-abandoned mill' and 'overgrown fields of nothing around' and 'no traffic on foot or vehicle', etc lol. So I was just getting to the 'if I phone him and he doesn't answer and he makes me go off into the spooky mill to find him...I'll kill him' mode when he finally reappeared.

Apparently he'd had to walk/run miles to get round the place but he had taken photos. And yep, he said it was even spookier inside with strange noises coming from empty trailers etc. lol But we did get to see the mill

We drove through North Bend to one other point on this paper not-to-scale fan map we had then we decided to drive to our hotel in the Seatac area. I had directions from Snoqualmie but we weren't sure what road we were on at this point and again there were no signs. By now it was pitch black and there were no lights or even houses in most of the area so we were driving through dark wooded roads with Elk signs everywhere and yep, we'd had a Elk walk out in front of us once already (as we'd left the mill area) so I was paranoid that one would run out. After driving around endlessly we finally found a garage and he told us the road to Seattle. However, when we got to the road (hour since we'd left the mill at least) we realised we had no idea what road/interstate we needed cause we were not on the interstate/freeway I had directions from. We tried asking for directions twice and the first guy said "what you need to do is... " and then told me completely the wrong info. I had visions of ending up in downtown Seattle with no clue where I was or where I was going.

We did eventually get some good directions and found our way to the interstate we needed...I still think it was more by luck than anything. We got to the hotel (Super 8) which was lovely, had a lift/elevator and nice comfy beds. I was so tired and somewhat stressed by now lol but we had an early call for the tour. To be fair it was only about 10:30pm so not late but it had a been a loooong day (but fun day). Andy was still very happy as his inner Twin Peaks geek had been thoroughly well fed

 

[DisneytheKid]

That burger is huge!

I should probably start by saying that Andy is a massive Twin Peaks fan. For those that don't know it's a tv show and apparently it was filmed in Snoqualmie. I left Andy to make all the plans for here, which was probably not wise as they don't sign post anything in Snoqualmie or North Bend...and by anything I mean anything. No road names, nothing!

First stop we did find was Snoqualmie Falls. They are beautiful and very high.

Andy from this point on, grinned like a Cheshire Cat for the day.

We had a look around the hotel, which apparently was in the show too. I'm afraid I'm not the best guide for this bit cause I watched the show as a kid but don't remember much about it.

We drove around the two adjoining towns looking for sites that still remained from the show. Andy was like a little kid lol he got so excited at everything. This is Laura's Log (apparently)

We found the famous diner so yep, we went inside.

It was about 5pm so we were hungry anyway. But not sure how Andy was planing to eat this...

But he kept room for the cherry pie (I'm not a cherry fan so I had a chocolate one, which was lovely)

This is probably the only place we found that actually played on the Twin Peaks theme. They had pictures etc on the walls. Gotta say too that the waitress was lovely and the food was good!

Having eaten we drove around looking for more sites. It was getting darker by the second but we were on a mission. This isn't a site, I just thought it was pretty

 

[DreamtheImpossible]

I grew up in North Bend, so I thought I'd share one of my favorite photos. A man by the name of Don Dietrick took it.

 

[DreamtheImpossible]

this one too.