Mt St Helens, and a motel break-in

We awoke to find the sun shining through a partly cloudy sky. Our plans were to go to Mt St Helens, the volcano that famously erupted 30 years ago, and good weather would help. I checked the weather forecast for the area, and it was predicting a 60% chance of snow on the mountain. We sped north from Portland on Route 30, crossing the Columbia River into Longview, WA, where we stopped for brunch.

From there we picked up I-5 and ten miles up the freeway exited into Castle Rock to take Route 504 east towards Mt St Helens. On the way we stopped at the visitor centre where we viewed a film of the 1980 eruption and wandered through the museum, The view of Mt St Helens from the visitor centre was obscured by cloud, but we decided to take the 45 mile ride up to the end of the road to the Johnston Ridge Observatory just to enjoy the ride. This was indeed another wonderful road for riding, except for all the tourist traffic that was sometimes slow moving. Additionally, some drivers were not as diligent as Californians in letting you past at turnouts, which could be frustrating at times. As we climbed to the Observatory at over 4200 ft altitude, the temperature dropped from 63 F to 47 F. A number of overlooks along the way offered ever more stunning views of the mountains, and the opportunity for slower drivers to pass us again.

At Johnston Ridge Observatory there was snow on the ground and the upper part of Mt St Helens was cloud covered. The visitor centre had no cafe, much to their loss. We were so cold we would gladly have paid big bucks for a luke-warm cup of mediocre coffee.

We soon turned back, again enjoying the vistas and admiring the engineering that created the road, especially the bridges.

Back at Castle Rock we retraced our route to Longview. It suddenly started raining very heavily as we came down the I-5. It was quite crazy: we were trying to keep up with the traffic which was doing 75 mph. We didn't have the benefit of windscreen wipers, and were unable to see the vehicles in front because of the wall of spray thrown up by their wheels. The rain stopped a few minutes later, as quickly as it started, and again we found ourselves remarkably dry in spite of not wearing wet weather gear. The rain returned when we got to Longview, so we stopped at a shopping centre for coffee, hoping it would pass. Eventually we gave up, and got into our wet weather gear again for the ride to Skamagowa where we planned to stay the night. It was a pretty town, but devoid of motels, so we rode on to the nearest motel west of there that our GPS knew about. This was the eponymously named Sleepy Hollow Motel. It was a long day in the saddle today: 243 miles, but once more, fabulous riding. Part of our pleasure arises because we simply can't get over how beautifully and intensely bright green the grass and trees are. I guess we have the rain to thank for that.

We later had a little drama at our motel. I was working on this blog outside the motel office in the cold because the wireless Internet doesn't reach our room, and Wanda thoughtfully bought me a cup of tea. Unfortunately the door locked behind us and our key was inside. I couldn't contact the office because I needed a phone, and mine was in the room with the keys...

Fortunately Wanda had left the bathroom window open when she had a shower earlier in the day. When she checked the back of the building she found a short ladder, so I was able to climb in the back window. Once inside we looked at each other and simultaneously burst out laughing...