After one Desecrates, one Must Consecrate

 Before the dam was built to flood the valley and create the Wachusett reservoir, this stone church was built (1891) at the juncture of the Stillwater and Quinapoxet River, where they merged into the Nashua river.  Though homes, mills, and farms were lost to the purposeful flooding, the church still stands, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.  It's one of the most photographed landmarks in the region, and for good reason, as if you look very closely to where Lizzie is pointing, the walls are filled with incredible, stirring art.

A Portent

This was lying on the ground at the mouth of the tunnel, and we went in anyway, headstrong fools that we are.

Haunted Ass Abandoned Train Tunnel

So mine and Lizzie's real goal in Clinton, MA was finding this abandoned train tunnel.  When the Nashua River was dammed off, the original train tracks were flooded, and so this tunnel was built in 1903 for the Central Mass Railroad.  At the time, it was the second biggest tunnel in the state, at a whopping .2 miles.  Just 50 years later, the tracks had been ripped up, and this tunnel abandoned by the state.


To find the tunnel, we first had to locate the remains of the trestle on Boylston street.  Once you found the trestle, you had to climb a small hill to where the tunnel's mouth sits, and at the top, you could see the headless trunks of rest of the trestle sunk into the reservoir on the other side of the street. 

We hadn't originally planned to walk its entirety, but when we could easily see the, well, light at the end of the tunnel, we decided to pass all the way through, though we knew the tunnel was supposedly haunted, and that a young girl had been found dead here 40 years ago.  After all, it was early afternoon, and we had hours of light left, and the tunnel was so short. 

Time seemed to slow down once we passed through the tunnel's wide mouth.  The cold granite around us dripped eerily, and the .2 miles stretched on, and on, and on.  Lizzie and I joked that at this point, we were more concerned with the living--if there were people hiding in the dark corners, behind the crumbling concrete.  We walked on, and on, and on, joking with each other until we finally hit the opposite end.  Time returned to its normal pace.  We laughed about how creeped out we'd been.

But we had to go back through to get out.  Had hours passed? We reentered the tunnel, following the non-existent tracks back (though somehow, they've appeared in this picture--the ground is rocky, full of crumbling stones, but there are no actual tracks), toward the eerie light, through the dripping ceiling, shivering as the ambient temperature dropped degree after degree.  When we got to the center of the tunnel, it was so cold that we could see our breath--it hadn't felt like that on the initial pass.  Noses running, hands freezing up like they do after a first, damp, snow, we stopped for a minute, feeling a strange thrumming in our chests, as if an actual train were passing by.  We heard the low rumbling,  thum-thum-thum-thum, and nervously mumbled about the magic of physics before picking up the pace.  Again, the compact tunnel somehow stretched on for miles in both directions--we'd look back at the exit behind us, to the exit in front of us, both light, and beckoning, and still felt trapped in a never-ending purgatory of freezing darkness, with the bass of a passing train vibrating around us. Our echoing footsteps seemed to be in vain, as the exit's light loomed in front of us, somehow staying the same distance away as we moved in what we thought was a forward direction.

But we made it out.  The feeling slowly returned to our fingers.  The tips of our noses warmed back up in the fall sunlight.  We joked about returning sometime at night, but neither of us are ready to board that ghost train quite yet...

Dam Fine Dam You Have There

 Guess who went to the second largest body of water in Massachusetts today?  That's right, LIZZIE AND I DID.  So circa 1897, this dam was set up here to block off the Nashua river, which flooded parts of a bunch of towns around Clinton (where this dam is) creating the Wachusett reservoir, which filled by 1908.  The only downside is that now you have one less place to pee in the area, because you could have peed in the Nashua river and no one would have batted an eye--PEE AWAY, GOOD SIR--but now people get all weird if you defile a public water source.  THAT'S PROGRESS FOR YOU.

Galloping Gertie

CONFESSION.  Last night I was having trouble sleeping, and as I was drifting in and out of sleep, my brain pulled the phrase "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" out from my subconscious.  It was kinda creepy, but we are staying in Tacoma tonight, and my brain didn't want me to miss out on Galloping Gertie, which I have been on and off obsessed with since learning about it in 11th grade physics with Mr. Hoar.  (His real name).  Now there are two bridges, but originally there was only one, and the towers of the bridge you see on the left are the originals.

Planning and construction on the original suspension bridge began in 1937.  Construction workers, observing the motions of the bridge deck, nick named it "Galloping Gertie."  I pause for a question here.  If it was observed that the bridge was shimming because of side winds, why didn't they try to address the issue before opening it to traffic?  They did open it to traffic on July of 1940, and the bridge collapsed dramatically only 4 months later.  Lessons were learned about forced resonance, wind frequencies matching structure frequencies, and luckily there weren't any (human) fatalities.  RIP Cocker Spaniel.  Because of complications from WWII, the bridge could not be rebuilt until 1950, and the old deck is at the bottom of Puget Sound, where it is now a reef.

Here, see for yourself!

Things Aren't As Dead As They Were 35 Years Ago So That's Good I Guess

 On the way down from Johnston Ridge, we stopped at Coldwater Lake, which was created from parts of rivers being dammed off by sediment and other debris.  That's Mt St Helens in the background with her post 1980 flat top look.

Aggressive Chipmunks are Aggressive

"Guess where I'm gonna shove your squirt gun..."

Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

In late March, 1980, Mt St Helens experienced a small earthquake, and steam started venting from the top.  By the end of April, the north side of the mountain began to bulge.  It kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and all the local folks were starting to get annoyed that they couldn't go to their cabins, and that certain roads were closed, because it seemed like nothing was going to happen, until May 18th, 1980, when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake happened, triggering the collapse of the north face of the mountain, which you see here, resulting in the largest landslide in recorded human history.  Chunks of super heated mountain mixed with ice and snow, creating mudflows that roared down the mountain, filling the valley, leveling trees, killing people and animals, and destroying bridges and lumber camps.  After the collapse, a lateral explosion of ash erupted, sending ash out as far as Missoula, Montana, where the skies were so dark, they had to use streetlights and headlights during the day.  People thought the Soviets had attacked, but in reality, it was just the deadliest volcanic event in the history of the US, with a 230 sq mile blast zone.

We went up to 4200 feet here at Johnston Ridge, which directly faces the crater.  Mt St Helen's was pretty chill today, but evidence of her destructive past was etched into the hillsides, and evident in the old forest trees which were blasted from their stumps.  Parts of the mountain, now called hummocks, litter the valley.  I went up to the top of the observatory, and when I came back down, Lizzie was listening to a lecture by a forest ranger, who began his spiel by shooting a chipmunk in the face with a green squirt gun he kept just for that purpose.  The chipmunks here are very large, squirrel sized, and aggressive, and will have their revenge.

As mentioned, 57 people were killed in the eruption, including 83 year old Harry Truman (not the ex president, another Harry Truman) who had stubbornly refused to evacuate, as well as volcanologist, David Johnston, who was stationed at this ridge, now named for him, observing the mountain for his assistant, who was away at a conference.  The 30 year old Johnston radioed in "Vancouver! Vancouver!  This is it!" before getting hit with chunks of steaming mountain, and neither his, nor Truman's bodies were ever found.

Lizzie and I watched a 15 minute movie, which was a super spooky and kind of depressing story of the eruption, which began with Johnston's last words.  (Okay his last raidoed words.  The poor man's actually last words were probably more along the lines of "FUuuuuUUuuuccckkk!")  There was a baby in the theater, and whenever they would run the camera with pyroclastic flow noises and perspective, the baby would start crying.  They really loved the pyroclastic flow angle, with overwrought music, and Lizzie and I were like 'WHO MADE THIS?" and it was a production company out of Boston.  Go figure.  THE EARTH IS A LIVING PLANET.  A LIVING PLANET WHO SOMETIMES GETS MAD AS FUCK AND BLOWS ITSELF UP.  Mt St Helens was active again in 2004-2008, but the eruptions were small in scale, mostly venting steam and enlarging the lava dome, and pushing up long shafts (heh heh) of solidified magma referred to as "whalebacks" by the scientist on one of the interactive screens activated by a button I mashed like a 4 year old.  GIVE ME MORE INFORMATION.  PUT IT IN MY BRAIN.

Crow Friends

Our next stop was the Hoffstadt Bluffs, where we had a meal of food overlooking this flood plain, which now rests a mile higher than it did before the 1980 eruption.  It also has a memorial to the 57 folks who died in the explosion, as well as this crow here who we made friends with by feeding her parts of our lunch.  She would grab her snack, fly away, eat it, hop back sideways and be like "MORE SNACKS HUMAN."  Now we have an army of crow friends.

BIGFOOT

We found him!  He was by this poor little A-frame house by the Toutle River.  The Toutle River took a lot of the mudslide debris from the 1980 eruption, and this little house here got filled with mud.  Also Big Foot moved in.  Bad luck all around.  We talked with the owners of a near by shop who owned this house, and she was super impressed with Lizzie's job but could give a shit about my exciting Academic Administrating.  Should have told her we're waiting on the Rabb explosion/mud slide any day now...

Silver Lake

 Our first stop on our exciting Mt. St. Helen's tour was Silver Lake here.  It is ridiculously pretty, and APPARENTLY GOOD SQUATCHIN' COUNTRY.  Here is Lizzie tree-knocking, which is one way to attract the squatches.  So far nothing...

Caulk the Maude and Float it

 Hiiiii!  So yesterday was a big travel day for us.  We took the ferry from the San Juan islands to Anacortes, and then drove south through some pretty awful traffic to Kelso, WA, where we were staying before heading to Mt. St Helens the next day.  Since we were so close to the Oregon border, we popped over the Columbia river and had dinner in a town where apparently three people were murdered earlier that day.  Nice.

Fashion Break

Modeling the latest in life jackets and spray skirts 2015.

We Didn't Die While Sea Kayaking

For today's adventure, we went with a tour group on an orca kayaking trip.  Our guide was a young man named William, and he drove us to the launch, had us watch a 12-minute power point presentation/"video" in a nearby hut about not touching/feeding/harassing/making direct eye contact with marine life, before giving us very specific and complicated instructions about setting up our kayak, what to do if we capsize (give up and become friends with the seals--become queens of the seals) and how to use the rudder, all of which we promptly forgot.  Lizzie was brave and took the back seat and steering job (my job was to look out for rocks.  ICEBERG RIGHT AHEAD) and after we were able to free ourselves from a sandbar, we launched pretty easily and trailed slowly after our group.

Lizzie and I are maybe not in the best shape, but we hauled and were mostly able to keep up.  We only stopped a few times to stare at the seals, one pictured below, but unfortunately on this part of the trip we did not see any orcas.  Aside from the seals, we saw a dog which I mistakenly thought was a deer for a minute, a couple of crows, a sparrow chasing a butterfly (the butterfly won), a few geese and a seagull.  Also, at one point, William took of his shirt and we were like "we are Nanas, please put that back on," but he had taken it off to show us kayak rolls.  We declined to try it ourselves, as did the rest of our group.

When we returned to the launch, we had to give our boats a sponge bath and haul them up to the shore, but I need to work on my guns, because Lizzie had to ask William to help me with my end of the boat.  I AM A FAILURE.  Also, I didn't have proper footwear, so I was windmilling on this slippery rock, trying to get my balance, and Lizzie had to shove me in the back to prevent disaster.  That tricksy center of gravity...

 We kayaked for three hours, and then William drove us back on the sea road, and I spotted some orcas in the distance because I am a boss at seeing (not so much at kayaking) and Lizzie and I stared at them, but not directly in the eye.

Okay.  So I hope you all can still respect me after I tell you what happened next.  William dropped us off, and we were about to make the mile walk back to our hotel, when another guide asked us "how was the paddling?  Did you see any orcas?"  As you know, stupid jokes are my jam, so I said "It was great! We saw some whales from the road.  I like to think that the fins were like like an orca middle finger."  WELL.  This did not sit well with the guide who said, "You know orcas have a migration path of 200-500 miles, so seeing them at all, even from the van instead of a kayak, is a magical experience."  He was not pleased with me, and I am pretty sure they are not going to let me take the ferry out tomorrow, and will leave me to swim back to Anacortes in my whale joke shame.  I dunno, I thought it was a killer joke.  HA HA.  Killer.  You know.  Like Killer Whales?  yeaaahhhhh.

My shoulders are gonna hurt so bad tomorrow...

Photo Essays and Whatnot

Here we are doing important things like eating, posing, and hugging.  Look at me with my camera.  BEHIND THE SCENES ACTION.

Fly Over Canada

Hahahahahaha.  So the dude taking our picture said "act like you're flying," and Lizzie and I stuck our hands up in the same direction, and then Ivana, who was pointing the other way, was like "OH FUCK" and switched it up, which made me laugh, and to be honest we all look like we're doing jazz hands more than we're flying.  Fly Over Gently and Classily Aging 1990s Girl Band, more like.

Speaking of Glorious Suites

Our hotel is a converted old age home.  Awww yeah.  My sister Heather said that hopefully we wouldn't find depends and teeth, but I hope we do.  Free souvenirs!

Island Time, Man

 This morning we drove down from Vancouver back to the US (USA USA USA!) and somehow we ended up in the border crossing lane of the scariest crossing guard ever (are they called crossing guards?  Lizzie and I watched a show about Canadian border agents and they were always finding drugs and stuff.  We only had the extra weight from all the delicious Canadian food we ate.) and it took us like 20 minutes longer to cross than it would have if we'd ended up in a different lane.  Unfortunately (fortunately?) the intense guard found us to be thoroughly non threatening, and didn't send us to the secondary check line, like he had with everyone else.

Our destination was Anacortes, WA, where we boarded the ferry (RIP Dr. Derek Sheppard) to San Juan Island.  Can you find the hidden mountain in the bottom picture?

We walked the mile up to our hotel (that went really well and really gracefully, I swear.  We didn't take Maude on the ferry--she's waiting for us back in Anacortes, and we didn't groan, fatly, as we dragged our bags up THE GIANT FUCKING HILL to our hotel) and then walked back down for dinner (and the bookstore) and Lizzie bought us some DELICIOUS WHISKEY and now we are doing important things like blogging and reading ghost stories in our glorious suite.

Brian Fellow's Arborist's Planet

 So have you guys seen Brian Fellow's Safari Planet?  It's an SNL Skit with Tracey Morgan.  Watch it on youtube, and come back and read this.  (I'd post a link, but the computer thinks we're in Canada and I can't find one that works.  LAZY JOURNALISM.  I'm sorry.) So Ivana took us to the Queen Elizabeth park, and I saw this tree, and unintentionally in a Brian Fellow's voice said "WHAT KIND OF TREE IS THAT." So we had to stop, and look at the tree, and it turns out that it's a "monkey puzzle tree."  It's native to Argentina and Chile, and is fucking cool.  Technical term.  Also, we were going to get tea at this park, but it was invaded by prom-going teenagers, so we decided to bail instead.  Following tree time, we had dinner with Ivana and her bf Casey who is a fellow ginger, and we talked about important ginger things before they dropped us off at the ol' Holiday Inn Express.  I MISS YOU ALREADY.  Ugh.  Thank god there is booze to stamp down those unfortunate "feelings," amirite?

Granville Island

After UBC, we went to Granville Island, and okay everyone, it's actually a peninsula.  Canadians, y'know?  Granville was the original name of Vancouver until 1886, but after being demoted as city name, it remained a street name, which chilled out by False Creek (hmmm...false creek.  Maybe that's why they call a peninsula an island...LIARS) and a permanent sandbar which is now "Granville Island."  The peninsula...I'm sorry...Island...is home to a bunch of markets and restaurants and artist galleries, and we stopped in this soap store where we saw two adorable toy Yorkies, whose owner groused about how Brittany Spears has created a generation of young women who leave their small dogs behind in dressing rooms.  What? IDK.  Either way we saw some cute dogs, but also this beautiful lady by a propeller.