May 18th 1990
I remember that day well. It was a beautiful spring day, and I was in Olympia, WA at a mall area. Capitol Mall it's called. I was with some friends at the south end of the mall where the smaller chain business's and a few supermarkets were. We were in the store called "Ernst". I was tired of looking, walking and went outside (facing South) and planted my butt on one of the benches to relax while the ladies were happily meandering back inside. The mall was busy that day and the parking lots was full of cars and people...not to mention all the patrons inside. It was a crystal clear day and Mt. St Helens was standing tall in the distance. I reminisced memories of many camping trips to Cougar Lake, WA and the surrounding area with my cousins and grand parents.
Short story..
Remembering good times of catching toads (frogs) and polliwogs around the lakes. The tadpoles along the lake shore were so thick that it was black nearly three feet out from shoreline all the way round the lakes. The water was squirming with life. As a young boy, nature was a big thing for me. Aand anything the wiggled, squirmed, slithered or crawled had my attention. But one of my fondest memories from visiting Cougar Lake, WA were those polliwogs. Because when you saw those polliwogs in the water, we knew that the developing frogs weren't far away too. That's when my cousins and I set out in search of them in the fields along the lake shore. You'd have to see it to believe it, but those hundreds of thousands of polliwogs evolved into tiny toads. Well, out in the fields there were literally thousands of them in piles (like mole hills) some two feet in circumference and piled a foot high. Yes.....little toads. Well, my cousins and I went back to camp and asked gramma for buckets and boxes and milk cartons. We were going to catch a whole mess of them things and take them back to camp. Well, we did just that. We caught (I'll bet) and no exxageration, about 500,000 little frogs no bigger than a dime and carried the containers back to camp to show gramma and grandpa what we'd caught. Well, they were out walking the dogs when we got back to camp. Well, we wanted to see how many we'd caught. My grandparents did all their camping in a real big tent where we all planned to sleep while camping....and, you guessed it. We went in the tent and poured all them frogs in the tent. There were frogs EVERYWHERE...in every nook and crevas possible
That day while sitting in front of the Ernst store, Mt. St. Helens blew it's top. It was like slow motion and something I didn't realize was really happening. The others saw the plume rising above the mountain. The word spread quickly throughout the store and also the whole mall. And before we realized it, everyone from inside the retail stores were outside watching as the plume of ash rose and spread for miles high in the sky. Then came the sounds of the eruption and the tremors from the blast. Everyone just stood there in awe for over 30 minutes as the ash was getting pushed by the winds to the North East. People were scared everywhere that lived in the area up and down the I-5 South corridor.
I could go on forever about the blast...and the devastation from. I remember how it was before May 18th 1990. How beautiful it was, peaceful and serene. The wild life was just amazing for the atmosphere. Now.....in one instance, it was all gone. Nothing in it's path was spared from the force contained inside the mountain.
To this day, along Highway 5 going South, there are literally mountains of ash everywhere as one of the reminders from the outcome. So many gone...and so much lost. To me, it's still like the desert. It will take many more decades for plant life alone to the ladies tracks.
Sorry for drifting in memorial ramble. There's just so much that was lost on this day 30 years ago.
I remember that day well. It was a beautiful spring day, and I was in Olympia, WA at a mall area. Capitol Mall it's called. I was with some friends at the south end of the mall where the smaller chain business's and a few supermarkets were. We were in the store called "Ernst". I was tired of looking, walking and went outside (facing South) and planted my butt on one of the benches to relax while the ladies were happily meandering back inside. The mall was busy that day and the parking lots was full of cars and people...not to mention all the patrons inside. It was a crystal clear day and Mt. St Helens was standing tall in the distance. I reminisced memories of many camping trips to Cougar Lake, WA and the surrounding area with my cousins and grand parents.
Short story..
Remembering good times of catching toads (frogs) and polliwogs around the lakes. The tadpoles along the lake shore were so thick that it was black nearly three feet out from shoreline all the way round the lakes. The water was squirming with life. As a young boy, nature was a big thing for me. Aand anything the wiggled, squirmed, slithered or crawled had my attention. But one of my fondest memories from visiting Cougar Lake, WA were those polliwogs. Because when you saw those polliwogs in the water, we knew that the developing frogs weren't far away too. That's when my cousins and I set out in search of them in the fields along the lake shore. You'd have to see it to believe it, but those hundreds of thousands of polliwogs evolved into tiny toads. Well, out in the fields there were literally thousands of them in piles (like mole hills) some two feet in circumference and piled a foot high. Yes.....little toads. Well, my cousins and I went back to camp and asked gramma for buckets and boxes and milk cartons. We were going to catch a whole mess of them things and take them back to camp. Well, we did just that. We caught (I'll bet) and no exxageration, about 500,000 little frogs no bigger than a dime and carried the containers back to camp to show gramma and grandpa what we'd caught. Well, they were out walking the dogs when we got back to camp. Well, we wanted to see how many we'd caught. My grandparents did all their camping in a real big tent where we all planned to sleep while camping....and, you guessed it. We went in the tent and poured all them frogs in the tent. There were frogs EVERYWHERE...in every nook and crevas possible
That day while sitting in front of the Ernst store, Mt. St. Helens blew it's top. It was like slow motion and something I didn't realize was really happening. The others saw the plume rising above the mountain. The word spread quickly throughout the store and also the whole mall. And before we realized it, everyone from inside the retail stores were outside watching as the plume of ash rose and spread for miles high in the sky. Then came the sounds of the eruption and the tremors from the blast. Everyone just stood there in awe for over 30 minutes as the ash was getting pushed by the winds to the North East. People were scared everywhere that lived in the area up and down the I-5 South corridor.
I could go on forever about the blast...and the devastation from. I remember how it was before May 18th 1990. How beautiful it was, peaceful and serene. The wild life was just amazing for the atmosphere. Now.....in one instance, it was all gone. Nothing in it's path was spared from the force contained inside the mountain.
To this day, along Highway 5 going South, there are literally mountains of ash everywhere as one of the reminders from the outcome. So many gone...and so much lost. To me, it's still like the desert. It will take many more decades for plant life alone to the ladies tracks.
Sorry for drifting in memorial ramble. There's just so much that was lost on this day 30 years ago.
