She's gonna blow!

does that mean they're going to start making Mount St. Helen's sundaes again - with lotsa sparklers? i loved them

Hey, how come I never got one of those? And I lived in the NW at the time, too...

boomer, I saw that. Earth, wind, fire, and water!

Wasn't there someone named Harry Truman that stayed out the last eruption? We were just getting into camping and I swear, there was ash all over our RV.

Harry Truman did, indeed, hang in there in his cabin until the bitter end...

I remember when they originally interviewed him. He absolutely refused to leave his home...and so he's buried out there somewhere.

WOW! Harry and I have more in common than I care to admit, D'art, but I must admit that I think I'd rather be blown away rather than be a lava lamp. (weren't those things hideous?)

boomer, you still feeling small shocks?

No, we can't feel anything here. I think they can only feel them in the crater as they are only about a 2.8 magnitude at the strongest right now. The quakes are coming several per minute though!

The showed one of the seismographs on the news last night and it was just a blur. I started looking on the net today hoping I could find one of those in real time but no such luck.

Lemme just hope the whole thing is so gosh darn boring we won't need any live coverage.

boomer, I was thinking about nature on the rampage, and recalled the introduction to James Michner's Hawaii. That was one beautiful prose poem, explaining how those islands were the result of volcanic eruption. To paraphrase Hawthorne, the black flower blooms where it may.

Keep us posted, boomer.

Oh man, I thought this was another thread about Monica Lewinsky....

Nature does have a way of reminding just how puny we are, doesn't it, Letty?

I remember my favorite cartoons when I was a kid were the Underdog cartoons where Simon Bar Sinister was making a weather machine to control the world. (One of the reasons I found this so fascinating, I suppose, was because my dad, a contractor, was always away "working a storm" (I wonder what a psychitrist would make of that!))

I can just hear Simon Bar Sinister now: "Missle defense shield! Bwah-ha-ha. I have a freaking weather machine you freaking idiots."

The first time she blew her top we were on a fishing trip in northern Manitoba, no radios, no phones. All we knew was that the sky looked very, very strange.

With the horrible events in Florida, the earthquake in California and now Mt. St. Helens, I guess we should be grateful that all we've had to worry about up here was the coldest summer on record (brrrrrr)!

Thanks for the link to the live camera, Boomer!

I lived half the continent away the last time she blew but somewhere around here I have a weather service sattalite photo from that day.

Mt. Saint Helens is so beautiful. I've spent a lot of time hiking and camping on the backside (the south side) of the mountain and it is insanely pretty. There are lava tubes to hike through and a lava canyon that is just beyond description, pristine lakes and heavy forests.

If you keep driving around the mountain you eventually come to the "blast zone" and it looks like nothing you've ever seen. Huge, old growth forests were toppled like toothpicks, lakes evaporated, it's very other-worldly. Its just been in the last few years that plants and animals have begun to rehabitate the north side of the mountain.

It really is one of the most amazing places to see and experience.

Wow. Mo just completely freaked me out.

I was checking the volcanocam and he came in saying "Look at the size of that volcano! Maybe we can go there."

I hadn't said a word about volcano.

Jeez. Maybe he can read.....

Clever lad.

Look this is cool:

http://www.pnsn.org/WEBICORDER/GREEN/MBW_EHZ_UW.2004093012.html

You can click through the seismic activity recorders on the different Cascade peaks. I think you'll know when you come to Mt. Saint Helens!

So, Boomer, excuse my bad geography, but where in relation is Mt St Helens compared to Portland?

To the northeast