Mount St Helens

We had a fun visit last Sunday to Mount St Helens. This was our first official visit to the area and there was so much to see. We stopped off at a few of the odd little museums on the side of the road, like the bigfoot one.. It also had an A frame that was covered in the initial mud flow that was cool. Our favorite place was the forest museum! Cool playground with cement volcano for the kids and amazing views of the remaining mud flats. The museum itself was quite immpressive as it had larger then life exhibits with reinacted rubble and tree planters. There was a cool discovery room that had every kind of fur, fungus, petrified, fossilized, you name its. Jack kept remarking that he actually petted a black bear! Yup a whole bear pelt was there. I was secretely in heavan as I rummaged through the forestry books and botany samples.
As we made our way to the view point we realized the Helens was shrouded in a thick cloud cover so we decided to stop off for a short hike at the newly made, from the last eruption, Coldwater lake. It was a beautiful habitat of wildflowers, lupine, and lake front. Our first impression was getting to watch a beaver ten feet away from us swim in the bright blue water and climb on logs. It was incredible! There were swallows, owls, and plenty of other critters. It was so pleasently quiet, fragrent, and peaceful that I wanted to sit there all day. Its a place we want to come back to soon.