Mt. St. Helens

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

We left Portland around 9:00 am on Wednesday heading north to visit the Mt. St. Helens visitor center on our way to Spokane. When we got to the center, we realized that we needed to visit the upper National Parks Center which is 55 miles up highway 505 and then 55 miles down again so that you can continue on. A trip that was well worth it. Unfortunately, the smoke from the forest fires was pretty thick and obscured some of the views.
We ended up with a long day and didn't get into Spokane until about 9:45 that night. The trip of White Pass was beautiful, but again the air was filled with smoke.

The Toutle River Valley, Which was flooded by massive amounts of ash, debris and water. This valley is currently filled from 100 to 150 feet of ash and debris.

More pictures to come, when I have a chance to download and process camera shots.

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Upcoming Trip To Ireland

As most of you know, Dona, Ann (Dona's sister) and I will be traveling to Ireland from February 16th to February 27th. We will be staying in one location for our entire trip and taking day trips out from our "home" base. We are staying in a self catering cottage called the Rambling House, which is over 200 years old. It is located at Kilmalkedar which is 5 miles from Dingle Town, Co. Kerry. See the links next to this posting. The weather should be okay; temps in the 50's, but with the promise of rain and mist. However, the number of tourists will be way down this time of year. We plan to spend a lot of time exploring castles, monastic sites, old forts, etc. Also on the agenda are considerable nights in the local pubs listening to traditional Irish music. Dingle is one of the great centers for this. Of course, Ron will be spending many hours every day taking pictures, which we will share with everyone. We have access to an internet cafe in Dingle, so we are planning on

Tenative Itinerary While in Ireland

For those of you who are planning on following our upcoming trip to Ireland we want to give you a general itinerary. We say general because for most of the trip we will be living in our "self catering" cottage. ( http://www.kilmalkedar.co.uk/ )It is not our intention to be held to a strict schedule that will dictate our every hour of the day. Friday, Feb 16 Leave Milwaukee on a bus to go to O'Hara airport, Chicago about 12:30 pm. Leave Chicago at 6:00 pm Saturday, Feb 17 Arrive in Shannon Airport at 9:00 a.m. Shannon is in the west central part of Ireland. We plan to take it easy going from Shannon to Dingle what with learning to drive on the left side of the road and on narrow roads and jet lag. They say that Dingle is 3 to 31/2 hours from Shannon. We will probably stop at a few places along the way. Once we get to Dingle we will plan to look around a little, buy some groceries and then head to the Cottage (5 miles). I'm sure we will plan to go to a pub that nigh

A Funny Story From Dingle

I wanted to pass along the following story from Dingle. Click on the following Link http://www.davethefox.com/lost/lucy.htm I can just imagine us getting into a similar situation. At least we will be prepared to better function in this situation than the writer of the story. Why will we be better prepared you ask? Because Dona is taking her flute with her, and we all know that "music sooths the savage beast"! Your next question may be; Why is Dona taking her flute to Ireland? She says that it has been her dream to be able to sit outside of an Irish cottage with the sheep grazing nearby and play Irish folk tunes on her flute. Pictures to follow once we get to our cottage.

Thru Ron's Digital Lens

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