MOUNT ST. HELENS AREA IN WASHINGTON

Jett’s Wild Flight: MY 12TH BIRTHDAY!

By: Jett Lillie, 5/31/23

I woke up early to a Birthday napkin trail leading to a Banner that read, “Jett is 12” and a birthday present with cards. I hurried to get ready and begged my sister to hurry up, too, so I could open my presents!

Once they finally got ready and opened my present and inside was Fortnite V-bucks, the Super Mario Bros DVD, and blue light glasses. Everything I had been wanting! (My real birthday present will be getting a Ball Python pet when we get home. I can’t wait!)

After presents, we loaded up and headed to a local bakery for Birthday Donut Breakfast! Yum! They had a long john that was half maple/half chocolate - my two favorites combined into one!

After donuts, we headed to Mount St. Helen’s Visitor Center where we watched a park film and got a Jr Ranger Booklet.

Unfortunately, it was field trip day, and two busloads of teenagers were everywhere! They were crazy! We let them funnel through first, then we got to look at everything without them in our way. In the museum part we walked underneath a small model volcano and learned about the magma chamber.

We also got to learn about the earthquakes and how they measured them using a seismograph. We could jump on the floor and cause our own earthquakes and saw our reading on the live seismograph. It was fun! My whole family jumped together, and we got a pretty high reading!

We finished our Jr Ranger booklets and earned a Washington State Park Jr Ranger Badge.

We stamped our passports and picked up souvenirs, then headed up to the Mountain to get a better look.

We drove on Spirit Lake Highway and saw a buried A frame house so we pulled over to get a better look at that! Turns out this was a Bigfoot research facility that also had Mount St. Helen's recovered items for display. I got a photo with the massive Bigfoot statue and then we got an unclose look at the house and several melted cars that were all in the blast zone and washed down in the massive mudslide.

This car belonged to a photographer who was taking pictures of the Mountain for National Geographic, and he didn't get out in time. He died and the camera and his pictures were also destroyed. Very sad.

We then continued on to the Forrest Learning Center.

They had a museum there that talked about the first responders onsite that helped rescue people from the 1980 explosion. We also got to watch a film with actual footage of the explosion.

Unfortunately, not everyone was saved, about 50 people lost their lives who couldn’t evacuate in time.

We also learned about how the forest and land was impacted by the explosion and is now recovering and growing. There was a cool Discovery Center where we could touch and play with all kinds of fur pelts, antlers, pinecones, lava rocks, ash, etc.

And there was a helicopter simulator, too!

We walked up to the Elk Point viewing spot and saw 1 horse, no Elk.

We also couldn’t see the top of Mount St. Helen’s because it was covered in a giant cloud. Bummer!

Next, we headed to the Mount St. Helen’s Creation Center where we learned about how God created the Heaven’s and the Earth. It was super cool how they use evidence from Mount St. Helen’s eruption and recovery to prove the Bible’s creation story is TRUE! Instead of billions of years old, the earth is only 6,500-ish years old. We also studied the dinosaur fossil room they had there.

We learned about how creation scientists can prove that fossils were formed rapidly (not over billions of years), and dinosaurs and people lived together. The term “dinosaur” wasn’t coined until the 1800s, but the KJV Bible refers to dragons and a Behemoth which literally describe dinosaurs based on their fossils.

We bought a great book that helped answer all my creation and dinosaur questions… I highly recommend it.

After the Creation Museum, we headed back to the RV to eat tacos for birthday dinner and watch my new Super Mario Bros. movie.

Lots of family & friends texted, called, and facetimed me! It was a most excellent Birthday!

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News: FORT VANCOUVER, WA

By: Jaycie Lillie, 6/1/23

When we got there the visitor center looked nice.

There was some cool art on display and SO many books in the store! I started reading when they called me over to watch the movie. Ugh, who cares about movies! Anyway, we watched the film. This guy (John McLoughlin) governed the fort a long time ago. He was short tempered and pretty creepy looking. His wife wasn’t much more beautiful but if anyone talked bad about his wife he would hit them with his cane 😳. Sooo yea…

The fort was a Fur trading company (Hudson Bay Company). The land was not owned by anyone yet. This company was European - British. Later many Americans came to Fort Vancouver via the Oregon Trail. It was neutral land for a while, then America wanted the land. Pres. James K. Polk made an offer for the land (they wanted it free). England did not want to fight the US anymore, so they gave US the land up to the 49th parallel, which is still the US border today.

Before all that the fur trading was traded among all! To get to the land a European boat would sail all the way around the tip of South America and back up. They would stop at the Hawaiian Islands, then come up shore to the Oregon Territory. They had friendly fur trading with Hawaiians and Native Americans. So many Tribes lived up North. This was great land. Many Beaver pelts to trade which were highly sought after in England. They made gentleman’s Beaver hats out of the pelts. Very silly looking if you ask me. But everyone benefited from the land, and everyone was friendly with each other. The workers weren’t paid much, though.

The creepy man (McLoughlin) and his family lived inside the actual fort. Some other wealthy, high class HBC workers or important people in the company would live inside the fort, too. The other workers or servants lived in the village. They were barely paid enough to support their family. They would buy from the company store then go in debt. They couldn’t leave because creepy McLoughlin would send out the hunters to bring the deserters back and you would be publicly punished. When could they leave? In the beginning they would agree and sign a contract to work 3 years. Yea, that is what I learned from the movie. I couldn’t read much because we left to go into the Fort and earn a Junior Ranger badge. We went into a re-creation of Fort Vancouver.

The original fort was taken by American Army and then a fire “mysteriously started in 12 places at once”. The American Army watched it burn. Archeologists found artifacts and now it is rebuilt by the National Park Service (I also learned that from the movie).

The Junior Ranger “book” was pretty easy… it was a scavenger hunt where you had to check mark at least 5 boxes.

We started by walking through the gardens.

They had beautiful roses that smelled Really Good! That was a checked box! I had to stop and smell the flowers.

We then stopped in at the Chief Factor's House, where the creepy McLoughlin and his family stayed. See...here's his picture, he looks creepy and mean, right?

We then went to the kitchen.

There was an old man making goat something soup? Sounded not very yummy but we still listened. He was using only cooking methods and tools they would've used back in 1840s.

We didn’t eat anything. He said before Covid he would cook a 4-course lunch and all the volunteers would sit at the table and eat it. They also had many artifacts (mainly dishes and pots) on display that archeologists had recovered from this area.

More checked boxes!

We then headed past the well and into the Bakehouse. No demonstrations here, though.

After that we went to the Black Smith. This older guy was finishing his demonstration and another guy was starting.

We came in time for the other guy. He made a decorative iron hook. Momma had to demonstrate a beaver trap with a piece of wood and then he gave her the hook to keep.

That was another checked box! (We had to learn about trapping and fur trade.) We then climbed up into the Bastion and saw some cannons. It was only ever used for ceremonial practices, never to actually defend the fort.

After that we went to look at some artifacts. And locked Jett in the jail – hee hee!

More checked boxes! After that we could get our badges! (#116) Jett found a free one on a window. The Ranger let us keep it and that was good because I later lost mine. 🤦‍♀️

We headed next door to the Pearson Air Museum after a picnic. During our picnic we watched some planes take off. Not huge commercial ones but little prop planes & small jets.

We could earn another Junior Ranger badge! We explored the air museum!

We earned our #117th Junior Ranger after we found all the answers in the air museum.

Later that day we tried to go to this place where we would pick lavender, but they were closed. Bummer! But then we discovered the clouds had disappeared out of the sky... so we went to the closest viewing of Mount St. Helen's and could actually see the top! It was from a far distance, but at least we got to see it!

Thanks for reading!