Happy 4th!

Castle Rock (tree covered mound to the right)

Looking downstream of the Cowlitz River

Happy 4th of July!  We're spending the week at Castle Rock, WA.  Why?  Seemed popular in the "Big Rigs Best Bets" RV park directory back when we got to seriously planning our move up the west coast.  Plus it was close to Mount St Helens which I wanted to see.

It's actually turned out to be a good place to sit for the holiday weekend.  Toutle River RV Resort isn't overly crowded.

Mount St Helens as seen from the Johnston Ridge Observatory

It's about an hour to Mount St Helens, about two hours to the coast at Long Beach, WA, and about 20 minutes to most services and shopping.   The town of Castle Rock is small, but quaint & clean. There's a nice 1.7 mile bike & walk trail along the levy by the Cowlitz River.

The devastation from the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption is still evident.  While the streams that flow through

Weyerhaeuser's forest Learning Center

the Weyerhaeuser tree orchards appear clear, most rivers are grey in color and under a clear blue sky, appear green. It's easy to pick out Weyerhaeuser treed areas vs. the national monument areas.  Weyerhaeuser = trees; national monument = brush & volcanic ash, etc.  And it doesn't hurt that Weyerhaeuser plants pretty trees, either.

For the hot days, the coast was cooler so we headed out to Long Beach to walk part of its bike & walk trail, eat at the Lost Roo (again), and drove along the peninsula there.  We also visited Osterville where they try to maintain everything as it was in the late 1800s.

Otherwise, we've hung out at Castle Rock while taking advantage of the local movie theaters to see some of the new movies and eat some good food.  If all goes well, we'll begin our trip east Monday.  We expect to be in Spokane Tuesday before moving up to Priest Lake, ID the following week.  Later, David