Anniversary Surprise

One of the things I love the most is to plan a good surprise. Birthday, Christmas, Anniversaries....all prime suspects. Well, 9/30 was my wife and my 6th anniversary, so it gave me another chance to plan something fun.

We usually take off for the weekend and hit the Oregon Coast, but lately we've been feeling that we should get a little more "outdoorsy," so that as our kids get a little older they get an appreciation for nature.

Living here in Vancouver, Washington it's pretty shocking that I've never been to see Mount St. Helens. I mean, she blasted away when I was ten, and I vividly remember where I was, and she's only about 90 minutes away from me. But the opportunity never came up, so I've never gone.

Over the last year or so my wife has mentioned a couple times that we should go, so when it came time to start planning, I definitely had the "where" covered. I just needed to figure out the little details.

My wife is also a huge fan of "Little House on the Prairie." She owns every book and knows just a little bit too much about Laura Ingalls Wilder to creep me out.

With such a love for that era, I figured "why not hook us up with a log cabin." I found a great little campsite called Eco Park and reserved a cabin.

Activities were easy to plan as the highway that leads to St. Helens has at least four visitor centers, and the campground had plenty of trails to hike and such.

We were pleased to find out when we arrived at the Mount St. Helens Silver Lake Visitor's Center that it was National Park Appreciation Day and entrance fees at all the observatory/visitor centers were waived. SWEET...I like free stuff.

Anywho...I'm already rambling.

The net result is the cabin was great. Log cabin with propane heat and lights (just like the olden days, right?!).

The campgrounds were frequented by elk, a point we figured quickly as we hiked around and discovered elk poo everywhere (as my son points out in the picture). On a hike we were lucky enough to spot a herd of about a dozen down a ridge in an open area. It was surreal to watch them watch us. Late, late that night we could hear them "bugeling" to each other. We also heard a coyote, which tends to wake you up a bit.

The surprise went over well, as I packed EVERYTHING and didn't tell my wife where we were headed. I told her I had to pee when we got to our exit, and she bought it until I wasn't looking for somewhere to pull over and she spotted a Mount St. Helens sign and got a huge smile on her face.

Trip was fun. The mountain was VERY impressive. Our sun caught a movie of the eruption at the first visitor's center, and was a little disconcerted when we got to the mountain and found the lava dome smoking. He goes "uh, oh." It was classic.

The surprise was a success. We had a great time. We didn't sleep well, but saw and did some wonderful things.