The Pickup!
| Day | 8 | Date | 16th May 2015 |
| Distance Total Distance |
00.0km 392.6km |
Weather | Misty |
| Rolling Time Total Rolling |
00:00:00 22:49:50 |
Terrain | N/A |
| Climbed Total Climbed |
0m 3,584m |
Spend |
Drinks $15
|
| Average Speed | 00.0k/h | Sleeping | JP + Colleen’s Comfy Spare Double Bed! |
| Max Speed | 00.0k/h | Difficulty | N/A |
Drive to Mt. St. Helens
Today I rose at 10am to feast on a fry already cooked, crispy bacon, sausages and home cooked pancakes with maple syrup and lemon, nom nom! We decided to go on a road trip to Mount St. Helens, a volcano that erupted catastrophically during May 1980, exactly one year before I succumbed to gravity, blowing its head and shoulders off in the process creating a zone of destruction for miles around. I was looking forward to seeing this so we strapped in and drove the 200km south slowly climbing through the mountains as we gained on the volcano. The closer we got the more we realised we should have stayed home, the volcano was closed for the day, nothing to see there due to the sticky white fog and mist that shrouded everything further then 20 feet off. We stopped at a few of the look out points as we got closer to the mountain and felt dizzy looking out at the horizonless nothingness that was on view. The culmination of the trip was the visitors centre looking out on to the volcano where we made tea and coffee in the carpark under the mist using my camping stove, Colleen had brought chocolate cake that we somehow never got to after dinner yesterday, so we had a mini picnic, me a coffee, Colleen a tea & JP a beer, before heading back down out of the clouds for the rest of the evening. This trip was a real taste of Kerry, mostly what I remember from the family holidays we had there every year, spent inside the clouds!
There was a cool bridge along the way up that we stopped off to get pictures at, it spanned a canyon between to mountains and would have looked cool if you could see more of its side view, there was a ladder inviting access to its innards when we got down to it so we climbed up and were bridge trolls so to speak for a few minutes. We also came across an old car on the way up once owned by Komo TV4 News based in Seattle, the car was in the vicinity of the blast site back on the 18th of May 1980 where the car has remained on view ever since.
We drove back to a small town named Centralia where they wanted to take me to this cool little micro brewery named Dick’s Brewing, we stopped here and went in, the setup was cool, it’s a brewery with a side bar area where they serve up all the beers that they brew there. The place looks very industrial and had a cool friendly vibe going on, there were a bunch of park benches in the bar area which were all full with other thirsty patrons. We ordered a sampler tray which comes with 12 glasses, each with a different Dick’s brew which we ripped through before deciding on a pint each to buy, when we went to leave our tab had already been paid, JP knows the guys that run the brewery so they picked it up….nice!
After Dicks we headed for Mc Menamins for some more beers and food, this is another real cool bar, hipster central I imagine! We stayed here a wee while where we ordered a giant pizza to eat washed down by a few more local brews before heading back home for a smoke or two before bed!
I was chatting with Colleen at the kitchen table and at some point said her name and realised how much its pronunciation is exactly like the Irish word Cailín meaning girl. I mentioned this as Colleen spent some time working the bars of Dingle and I was sure she had encountered incidents with the double meaning. She told me once she was working in a bar somewhere around the start of her travels in Ireland, before she found out that her name was girl, an old man walked into her pub and muttered, “Cailín, pour me a pint of porter” to which Colleen responded, “WTF! How do you know my name, I don’t know you?” I’m sure the two of them were scratching their heads at the incident, I guess this was the point Colleen learned the double meaning of her name, haha!
Flea The Race 