Ocean City, WA

Monday was a nice sunny and warm day so we relaxed and enjoyed it. Mistake. Tuesday and Wednesday it was cold and rainy all the time. We did some routine work on the trailer while trying to stay dry. Today we left Randle about 9:30 after having a mom & pop RV shop install a safety recall on the fridge. Another overcast and misty day in the 50s but a short 130 mile trip back to the Pacific arriving at Ocean Shores CG at noon. Nice site, totally surrounded by trees and bushes with a creek right behind us, fortunately the TV dish works! After setting up we discovered the A/C (not that we will need it anytime soon!), heat pump (you bet we'll need that!), and the fridge didn't work. No power. Circuit breakers all OK. I called RV (service managers initials!) at NuWa service and he informed me these A/C powered units needed 12v DC power too. Yep, blown fuse, probably when the mom & pop RV shop installed some metal barriers to eliminate a fire hazard in the fridge. Thank you RV. We went for a drive and stopped at the post office, hardware store, McDonald's and went for a drive on the beach. When we returned we went for a walk and found a small cemetery in the woods about 6 sites down from us. Seems 2 ships (one from Chile and another from England) floundered in the 1880s here. There are 12 British sailors buried there plus an Indian who saved many other sailors, he died many years latter. There are two 17 & 20 year old siblings also buried here. Kind of dark, damp and dreary place.

Mt St Helen

Before I go any further I have to tell you yesterday was a red letter day, the first day since we retired we made money!! Judy won $16.50 playing card bingo. This was significant!!

It was beautiful today, lots of sun and hi 70s. We drove to Mt St Helen, about 120 miles although we are probably about 50 miles, at most, from it. We passed a tulip nursery on the way, checkout the flower I picked for myself. The local short cut passes are still closed due to snow. The local paper said the average snowfall is about 550 inches, they got 890 this winter, that's about 72 FEET of snow. I have seen pictures of the mountain before but really never grasped the significance of the eruption until we saw it ourselves. The top of the crater is 1 1/2 miles across. There is now a glacier that's 500 feet thick inside the crater. Mt Rainier was nothing compared to seeing St Helen today. Today was the 28th anniversary of the eruption so there was a special presentation at the Johnson Ridge Observation across from St Helen where you can look right into the crater. My pictures do not do justice to the mountain and what happened here.