Mount St. Helens

While I was in Oregon after the camping trip to Yosemite National Park, my cuz amanda and I decided to head up to Washington state for a day and go to Mount St. Helens.  We first went to the Mount St. Helens visitor center, to learn about volcanoes, and the actuarial major eruption that occurred in may of 1980.   Once we where finished there, we took the 50 mile drive over to the Johnston Ridge Mount St. Helen Observatory, which is located just north of the volcano, where you can see the crater that was created from the 1980 eruption.  When we first got there, the volcano was covered my clouds, which we felt it wasn't worth traveling out there for.  We went into the Observatory to see a film, and learn about Mt. St. Helens.  After we went outside to the observation deck, the clouds where all gone.  Seeing this volcano, and the area that was effected by the eruption of 1980 was a sad scary feeling.  All the forest around the mountains was blown down.  You still got to see many of the trees that where blown down from the blast.  Also you look into the valley where tons of people used to live, now is tons of mud, and little canyons that the river is starting to carve.  No live in some areas, and it gives a eire feeling to it.  It was really cool to see this awesome volcano, and when you look into the crater, you still see steam coming up from inside the earth.