St. Helen’s Coughs up Ash Cloud
Yesterday as we pulled into the shopping center on our way to buy dog food, a cloud caught my eye. I did a doubletake and realized it wasn’t just any cloud. It was St. Helen’s erupting. I shouted out for everyone to look and we stopped and watched the cloud grow and change. A ton of people ran out of the stores and got up on cars or any structures they could to watch the amazing show. Then they did what I did, pulled out the cell phones and started calling people. This jammed the networks of course, lol.
It turned out it wasn’t a full blown eruption, just “another” ash cloud, however, this one was quite big and impressive. I really wish I had my camera with me. After we got our dog food, we raced home to grab the camera but by then the cloud had dissipated enough that it just looked like “normal” clouds hovering around the mountain. And the pictures I got of that turned out really grainy and blurry since the car was moving. Oh well.
I did get this beautiful shot of the sunset last night as we drove to Freddies to pick up a new coffee maker:
I wish we’d had the camera on us right then. I haven’t seen any pictures yet that have captured the awe striking magnitude of this mile high plume rising from the mountain. Our view of it from the Pet Smart parking lot when Tracie first noticed it was amazing.
There was also a pretty strong sulphur smell in the air a few hours later that lingered for a good part of the evening. (We live about 45 miles south east of Mt. St. Helens btw.)