Vacation 2015, #9 - Mount St. Helens

Continuing on with our vacation post from last summer (I WILL get thru all of these!) with a stop at Mount St. Helens. I have been wanting to visit this place since I was a wee lad toting newspapers around the neighborhood when this thing was lighting up the press!

And so, we stopped on our way from the Seattle area to the Portland area.

Two fine looking young specimens adorning the marker of the National Monument.

Calebber on the wall overlooking the North side of Mount St. Helens, or if you'd rather, the side that got the snot blown out of it back in 1980.

Robby, same wall, same mountain...

Aunt Molly doing the same!  Smiling willingly for a photo, I might add.

And finally a shot of mountain itself with all foreign bodies removed from its foreground. Much more impressive in person as you could really tell how much of the mountainside had been displaced.

The "mud river" from the eruptions is where I probably could have spent a LOT of time.  To think that there were mature pine and other trees completely covered is stunning.   Something else that was stunning was how far that muddiness went down stream as you can sort of tell in the next shot.

This is merely a satellite shot from google maps showing the road we were on (hwy 504) and that mud extended for over thirty miles alongside of that highway.

More mud a bit closer up.

The Mobile Chaos Unit in their splendor.

I look a lot better from a little distance so I included this shot as well.  I believe we stopped at a lookout point called Eagle Rock or Eagle something-very-similar-to-that.  We had a ways to go to get all the way down to the nearest lookout point and time was beginning to be of the essence.

And that about does that...  Next up on the list?  I dunno...  somewhere South of here!

Vacation 2015, #8 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 3

And the 3rd & final post about the dank underground of the great Northwest, and I'm NOT referring to the office of "cheatin' Pete Carroll" and his Seattle Seahawks, but rather the underground that is old Seattle proper.
 

Again, right from the sidewalks of downtown, we re-enter the underground.

I couldn't figure out what this was, but thought it may have been at one time one of those sidewalk skylights that were sort of purple'ish, but could be terribly wrong.  It almost looked like wine bottle sticking out but they obviously weren't. Ideas? 

An old bathtub of sorts.

This was a hallway leading from what seemed to be one area of storeroom for old, antique underground poop to another.

And here we see more of that stuff, or poop, as I referred to it.  The pictures do NOT capture the awesomeness of some of this stuff that was just cast to the side of the walkways.

Exhibit A!!!

At the time I took this pic, I had  a thought of what these might be.  Now?  Not a clue...

Looks like office furniture or school room stuffs.  Who's to say?

This was a pic that hung near the end of the tour representing some of the "street level" stuff that you get to witness on the tour. 

Is it all for real?  Again, who's to say, but I can say that it was super-cool to see this stuff on the tour and it was one of our favorites as we ranked vaction in a family-geeky way!

Vacation 2015, #7 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 2

So, I finally get around to working up a little post about the underground in Seattle, Part Deux.

I had hoped to be fast at it but, well, I wasn't.  I have no excuses other than to say that I had more impressive offers!

Yeah right...  I'm lazy and was putting it off.  That's it...

Off we go!

Back underground we go on Part II of our tour.

This was the first big room that we came too.  A former bar, dining establishment.  And who would've guessed who was tending bar, except for smaller Chinese boy and larger American boy,  Caleb and Robby, respectively!

And just in case you need to wash up or use the crapper, here 'tis!

Here we're passing thru an area that has obviously been reinforced with supports in more recent years.    Comforting...

Another shot with some cool old artifacts along the edges of our "trail".

More of the same... both additional supports and interesting stuffs off to the side that you cannot experience from our photos, so you'll have to take the tour for yourselves.

Obviously, a more recent addition, but I couldn't begin to tell you why.

A better shot of the formerly arched window store fronts.

And again, we're back at street level, this time deposited into a alley behind an old Italian restaurant. 

And so, part II comes to a close.  Better luck to me on getting part III completed sooner, than later.

Vacation 2015, #6 - Seattle, Underground Tour, pt 1

On this fine day with the temperature outside sitting near zero degrees and a good, stiff wind blowing with gusts up to nearly 30mph, I figured it would be "warming" to look back to July and a post about downtown Seattle, WA. 

This is the first of 3 parts since I have about 30 pictures I wanted to share.

This was one of our favorite activities on our vacation and I wish we would have had more time to go off into the little nooks and crannies that you'll occasionally see in the pics.

This is the street corner where you buy your tickets and begin your tour.  That fancy black iron awning this is part of  a bus stop at this corner.  Really a pretty cool area all around.

This is the meeting spot where you meet your tour guide and get a bit of history of what you're about to see.  It's a beautiful old hotel bar with some amazing woodwork.  And, it provides your last option of a public restroom for a little while, so choose wisely...

Here we are, under the streets of Seattle as our tour guide explains what we're looking at in that photo that hangs on the wall.  I wish I would have done this post back in August when I could remember some of the stuff that he relayed to us because it was cool, historically speaking.

Here's the first of many of those nooks & crannies that I spoke of earlier.  I'm unsure if this is a nook or a cranny...  I would have to have explored it to determine the correct answer.

There were many blocks of sites like this.  It would be fascinating to go down there and be able to extract some of that 100's of year old wood that's laying along the walking paths!

You really can't tell by this photo, but you were looking thru an old store and there is another room, or rooms, that are lit up on the backside of it.  Again, I wish that a fella was allowed to explore all of this in a much more thorough and time consuming fashion!

Note the brick archway on the left of the photo. That used to be street level storefronts.

Blurry, but gives you an idea of some of the passage-ways we went thru.

This is a "sky-light" from the under-side.  You walk over these on the streets leading to the beginning of the tour.

Another nook and/or cranny that should have been explored.

Here we are going back up to street level at the end of part 1 of our tour.

I'll attempt to do parts II  & III soon, but you never know with me...

Vacation 2015, #5 - Seattle, Space Needle'ish

Well, enough of the ugly feet pictures post at the top! On to the next vacation post from last summer. 

It's only the fifth post from vacation so far and I've probably got another 10 or so to go after this...

As you maybe guessed from the title, we're at the Space Needle and it's surrounding area this time around.

We mis-handled the day and in turn, the day mis-handled us...  I'll spare you the details but it wasn't the best day of vacation although you wouldn't guess that after looking at these fun pictures!
 

I snapped this pic at the base of the Space Needle while we were waiting in line to buy our tickets.  Pretty cool building and surrounding area but I wouldn't want to be here in a large earthquake!

Look who was on security duty this fine day!  They had taken the day off from conquering far off galaxies and provided a little muscle for the crowds that gather on an afternoon of lovely weather.

Spiderman was also present but he had just been shopping for some new Keds sneakers...

This is inside the top of the Space Needle.  It's nearly empty because only 1 of the 3 elevators was working and we were some of the last folks going down.

The Mobile Chaos Unit at the top of the Needle on the outside catwalks.

A little Seattle city from high above.  This is looking mostly North and a bit to the West.

From nearly the same spot on the deck, this is looking mostly South, and a bit to the West.

There's a large playground area near the base of the Space Needle.  That's where we're at currently with the boys climbing on this cable apparatus.

Again on that same climbing thingy with the Music Emporium in the background.   That's that silvery and purplish looking building.

This is part of that same playground.  It's a giant maze that you have to walk thru and I will say that I had great fun doing it!

Robby a ways into the maze with me out in front snapping pix.

A rather large Stratocaster inside the Emporium.

And finally, we're getting on the Trolley to head back towards the downtown area from whence we came as our day draws to a close.