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elfsThe patch failed. Again, we woke lying on the ground. Kouryou-chan might suspect her father is a bear-- his face is covered in hair and he growls meanly when a little child wakes him up at three in the morning seeking reassurance that the volcano won't explode anytime soon.
Warning: there are pictures here that might disturb you if you're uncomfortable with death.
I made pancakes with 20% Khamut flour, which gives them a delicious taste without the ultra-density of Amaranth. Cooking over a fire is a lovely experience; I'm glad I didn't drop any in. Everyone got One Big Pancake each.
We drove to the Hummocks Trail Loop. A hummock is a rounded mound of something that fell from the sky: snow, usually, but in the case of St. Helens, ash. "Rounded mound" doesn't sound too bad, until you realize these are mounds 20 feet to 30 feet high of fallen ash that compacted in the rain and are now a permanent fixture of the landscape. The trails are fascinating-- over and over again, the evidential scars of the blast impressed me with the destructive force it must have unleashed upon this valley. And yet water from the mountain glaciers and spring rains has already carved determined channels out of the valley, and everywhere you see water, plants and bugs are busy. It's not safe terrain-- we saw a huge wasp nest.
And what is it with the bad grammar of government types? One of the placards read, "Cities at the base of volcanoes have been built unknowingly of this danger from debris avalanches." Take out the dependent clauses and you get "Cities have been built of danger." Yeah. That's a cool opening for some kind of SF noir-ish novel. That's not cool when you're trying to educate the public. Never mind the terrible lack of agreement in number. Multiple volcanoes, multiple bases, people, come on! This was the worst example, but throughout the trail there were dozens of grammatical errors on the placards that made the whole thing look like the effort of a high school dropout.
We walked the Coldwater Lake Trail, which goes around the south side of the lake and promises access to the water at some point. We're even allowed to go swimming. Fat chance on such a cool day. Why couldn't it have been roaring hot, like it was yesterday? Along the way, we spotted some bones on the trail and I took photos. It was probably a deer, but the skull looked an awful lot like a boar's. Are there boar in Washington? A pair of hikers coming the other way claimed there was a fawn further up the trail, but we never saw it. The girls were fascinated by dried pea-pods that rattled when you brushed past them. There were beautiful, fluffy flowers as well. When we got to the lake outlet, we found a well-maintained outhouse. There was a dead frog which also fascinated the girls, expertly gutted by a raccoon, according to the tracks. Enormous driftwood with the characteristic scouring and twisting of the day of stone wind lay against the shore like sentinels. There were ducks.
As we rested, I had to remind a couple of kids that walking off the trail was a $100 fine. They were tramping through the grass on the other side of a stone wall. Their parents couldn't have been bothered. And we passed a now-abandoned illegal campsite where the campers had left their garbage. The girls had a lot of fun playing at the edge of the lake, and I let the girls play with the camera.
We returned to camp, re-patched the mattress, and made pizza loaf-- garlic loaf stuffed with pizza sauce and cheese. It was quite good and the girls ate it, but I could feel all those calories.
We also tried to roast apples. Omaha discovered that the best trick was to quarter the apple, dip it into a bowl of brown sugar and cinnamon, and then roast that over the fire very slowly. The sugar melts and glazes nicely, the apple softens, there's a smoked flavor, it's a bit like a mini-apple-pie. Kouryou-chan just ate the apple-sugar-cinnamon mix cold. Yamaraashi-chan stuck with the roasting process and enjoyed the result.
Warning: there are pictures here that might disturb you if you're uncomfortable with death.
I made pancakes with 20% Khamut flour, which gives them a delicious taste without the ultra-density of Amaranth. Cooking over a fire is a lovely experience; I'm glad I didn't drop any in. Everyone got One Big Pancake each.
We drove to the Hummocks Trail Loop. A hummock is a rounded mound of something that fell from the sky: snow, usually, but in the case of St. Helens, ash. "Rounded mound" doesn't sound too bad, until you realize these are mounds 20 feet to 30 feet high of fallen ash that compacted in the rain and are now a permanent fixture of the landscape. The trails are fascinating-- over and over again, the evidential scars of the blast impressed me with the destructive force it must have unleashed upon this valley. And yet water from the mountain glaciers and spring rains has already carved determined channels out of the valley, and everywhere you see water, plants and bugs are busy. It's not safe terrain-- we saw a huge wasp nest.
And what is it with the bad grammar of government types? One of the placards read, "Cities at the base of volcanoes have been built unknowingly of this danger from debris avalanches." Take out the dependent clauses and you get "Cities have been built of danger." Yeah. That's a cool opening for some kind of SF noir-ish novel. That's not cool when you're trying to educate the public. Never mind the terrible lack of agreement in number. Multiple volcanoes, multiple bases, people, come on! This was the worst example, but throughout the trail there were dozens of grammatical errors on the placards that made the whole thing look like the effort of a high school dropout.
We walked the Coldwater Lake Trail, which goes around the south side of the lake and promises access to the water at some point. We're even allowed to go swimming. Fat chance on such a cool day. Why couldn't it have been roaring hot, like it was yesterday? Along the way, we spotted some bones on the trail and I took photos. It was probably a deer, but the skull looked an awful lot like a boar's. Are there boar in Washington? A pair of hikers coming the other way claimed there was a fawn further up the trail, but we never saw it. The girls were fascinated by dried pea-pods that rattled when you brushed past them. There were beautiful, fluffy flowers as well. When we got to the lake outlet, we found a well-maintained outhouse. There was a dead frog which also fascinated the girls, expertly gutted by a raccoon, according to the tracks. Enormous driftwood with the characteristic scouring and twisting of the day of stone wind lay against the shore like sentinels. There were ducks.
As we rested, I had to remind a couple of kids that walking off the trail was a $100 fine. They were tramping through the grass on the other side of a stone wall. Their parents couldn't have been bothered. And we passed a now-abandoned illegal campsite where the campers had left their garbage. The girls had a lot of fun playing at the edge of the lake, and I let the girls play with the camera.
We returned to camp, re-patched the mattress, and made pizza loaf-- garlic loaf stuffed with pizza sauce and cheese. It was quite good and the girls ate it, but I could feel all those calories.
We also tried to roast apples. Omaha discovered that the best trick was to quarter the apple, dip it into a bowl of brown sugar and cinnamon, and then roast that over the fire very slowly. The sugar melts and glazes nicely, the apple softens, there's a smoked flavor, it's a bit like a mini-apple-pie. Kouryou-chan just ate the apple-sugar-cinnamon mix cold. Yamaraashi-chan stuck with the roasting process and enjoyed the result.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-05 06:22 pm (UTC)