MY WIFE, LINDA, my one-eyed English bulldog, Admiral, and I awoke at the same time that morning in May, 1980, at Bumping Lake, Washington. Neither Linda nor I knew why we were awakened at the same time, and we didn’t give it much thought. It was a beautiful crisp morning in the mountains. The sky was bright clear blue without a hint of a cloud anywhere. So I headed off to the rustic old boat rental shop on the far end of the lake, riding my trusty Hodaka mini-bike, in hopes of landing the biggest fish ever caught by man. After forking over a king’s ransom for a boat reservation ($14), I was headed back to the campground when I noticed clouds boiling in. Suddenly rain began to sting my eyes like |
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thousands of tiny sewing needles, so I slowed the Hodaka down to a crawl. When I looked out at the lake to check out the raindrops bouncing on the mirror-calm water, I noticed there weren’t any. Just my luck, I thought. “It’s only raining on me.” I began to feel a little like a Charlie Brown character when I noticed it wasn’t rain that was now blanketing me, but ash. That’s when the horrible realization hit me like a blast from Mike Tyson. This is NUCLEAR BOMB FALLOUT!
When I reached the campground, I observed fellow campers scrambling to evacuate. When I heard one fellow yell, “St. Helens blew!” I was very much relieved. I had just survived what I thought was a nuclear war, so this little old volcano wasn’t going to run us off. The other campers, however, were screeching out of the campground in their motor homes. Many didn’t bother reeling in their attached awnings, and they were subsequently ripped off on trees lining the narrow campground road.
Everything else that was outside—ice chests, lawn chairs, fishing gear, or wives—remained behind. Heck, I felt like Yogi Bear! As I was trying to figure out how to get all of those pic-n-nik baskets into our 1954 Chevy pickup, the sky rapidly grew darker. I had to quickly light our lantern, and within a few minutes you couldn’t see the glow of the mantle from more than 10 feet away. The billowing ash choked our lungs so badly it was like trying to breathe at a Grateful Dead
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reunion. I now figured, with the help of my wife, being the last one there wasn’t such a good idea after
all. Near tears at the thought of leaving all of those treasures behind, I stepped on the floor starter of the ‘54 pickup, turned on the powerful six-volt battery system’s headlights, and eased our way out of the campground.
Visibility was, at best, five feet in front of the truck. Ash was pouring in through every orifice of the rickety old bucket of bolts, making seeing and breathing even worse. We had gone only a mile or two down that mountain road when Mother Nature decided to make things even more interesting. All of the hot billowing ash mixing with the cool morning air produced a lightning storm the likes of which I’d never seen. So much, so close, it was rocking the ‘54 like a teenage girl at a hip hop concert. Though we tried to make light of the situation, both Linda and I knew we were in serious trouble. We had already run off the road twice by this time, though fortunately neither venture was off a 1000-foot cliff. Admiral, on the other hand, was happy to be riding in the back of the truck with all of that ash and his new found pic-n-nik baskets.
After miles of rocking and rolling in the dark, we realized the dense ash was finally coming to an end when we spotted a state trooper near the city limit of Yakima. He had set up a roadblock to keep people from going |
into that from which we had just emerged. No one was leaving Yakima any time soon so we needed a place to stay. Linda and I trudged into the lobby of the nearest hotel. The folks that were gathered in the lobby buzzing about the day’s events all turned in our direction and stared in horror. The thought of having a giant booger on my lip passed when one patron spoke up. “Where in the hell have you guys been?” Linda and I exchanged glances and realized what he was talking about. We were both shrouded in ash like gray ghosts. The hotel owners gave us a room at cost. Either they were the nicest folks I’d met in a long time, or they didn’t want us to haunt them. We were stranded in Yakima for a couple of days until the highway was cleared of the millions of tons of ash that had blanketed eastern Washington that dreadful day in May.
IT'S BEEN 27 YEARS since our experience with Mount St. Helens. Admiral, the one-eyed English bulldog, has gone to that great pik-n-nik basket in the sky. Linda and I are a little older and a heck of a lot wiser when it comes to Mother Nature. They say there are some things you never forget. That camping trip is indelibly etched in my memory. I can still hear that thunderous roar of the mountain in the back of my mind. Either that or my teenage daughter is playing one of her hip hop CDs. |
