Kennedy Creek Salmon Tour

Yesterday, we went on a docent-led tour of Kennedy Creek.  This trip was planned months ago as it fills up with school tours.  It can be hard to plan ahead as the salmon don't return in the same numbers on the exact same days each year.   We scheduled our trip for the week most likely to have some salmon.   Fortunately, there were some salmon in the river!  They weren't in the high numbers but they were there.

Our docent asked the kids questions to give them an opportunity to show off what they knew.  She explained the importance of the tributaries, riparian forests, good logging practices (the site is funding by a logging company), and taking care of the area.

We walked over a bridge that overlooked this tributary stream.  It was only a couple inches deep, but when it rains the salmon will actually come up this tiny stream too.  It seems impossible!

One of the things she had to show the kids was a set of tubes showing the early salmon life cycle.  It had eggs, newly hatched salmon, and salmon at different stages for the first 120 days.  She also had polarized glasses which make it easier to view the fish in the water.

You could see the salmon a little better than my camera could capture them.  But in some areas, you can see their fins and tails sticking out of the water, splashing around when they defended their territory or dug their redds.

This poor fish was tired and getting dragged downstream by the current.  It wasn't dead yet though.  We did see a couple of dead fish, but it is still early in the season.

We also got to see this replica of the native Indian salmon fishing tool.  There were some interpretive signs for the trail in it as well.

Mount St. Helens: Ape Caves

We had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Ape Caves with a geologist in the lead.  We also stopped by the Trail of Two Forests and the Lahar Viewpoint.  It was a long, but good day.

On the way up to our meeting point, I saw this beautiful viewpoint overlooking Yale Lake and stopped to grab a picture.

We arrived at the Trail of Two Forests and waited for the rest of our party.  We had lunch and explored the area immediately around the picnic benches.  Then our guide said a few words about volcanoes, explaining the types of eruptions we'd be seeing, the kind of volcano St. Helens is, and a few other interesting facts.

We got to see samples of vesicular basalt (aka lava with air bubbles).

The exciting thing about this part of the trip were the tree casts.  A lava flow from long ago wrapped about the trees in the area and hardened.  The trees either burned up or eventually decayed leaving behind hollow areas in the hardened lava rock.  We got to explore one of them.

One tree cast had a ladder heading down into it.  From there, you could crawl long a horizontal cast to an exit approximately 50 feet away.  It's small (hands and knees crawling on not-so-smooth rock), dark (need head lamps), and wet down there.  I know because I went through it.  Some of the kids loved it, and a few brave adults went through as well.

This is what the inside of the tree cast looks like from the exit.

After exploring the area, we headed back to our cars and drive a few miles up to the Ape Caves.  The Ape Caves are long tunnels running roughly parallel to the surface that were formed by lava moving underground.  There are two sections: the larger but more difficult upper tube and the easier lower tube.  We walked the lower tube.  The caves are pitch black, and the floor is uneven.  Multiple sources of good light are required to explore the tubes.

I knew Sam would love the Ape Caves, but he really loved them.  He was asking me to form another trip through them before we were even out of them.  Mika even enjoyed them; she ended up helping a couple of the younger kids through most of the walk.  (They just love her.)

Don't be fooled by the light picture!  I had my camera set on night portrait mode, and it does a very good job taking photos in the dark on that mode (still many of the photos have blurring and ghosting from the slow shutter speed).  This was on of the smoother, easier to walk in parts.

Other parts were rocky like this section.

This part is called the railroad tracks.  The raised tracks go on like this for quiet a while.

The rock overhead is called "Meatball".  It was apparently a block of cooled lava that fell from the ceiling while lava was still flowing through the tube.  It was carried downstream until it got wedged in a narrow space.

And this is the end of the 3/4 mile tube.  The floor becomes sandy.  The floor and ceiling gradually slope together until it dead ends.  At this point, there's nothing to do but go back the way you came.

After the Ape Caves, we drove 9 miles to the Lahar Viewpoint.   I was surprised to find snow on the roads (but it wasn't too bad), and the kids were thrilled.

When around snow, one must make a snow ball, right?

And throw it at someone.

It was sunset as we were driving back down the mountain.  After 9 1/2 hours, we finally walked back through our front door.    The kids loved it and want to go back. 

A Critter Kind of Day

We took the day off formal academics to visit Woodland Park Zoo with Columbia Virtual Academy.  It was an almost perfect day for it; it was cool, which is great for animal viewing, but not cold or wet.  We generally had a good day, though Maddie seemed to be having trouble walking and tripped and fell numerous times.

Our critter kind of day started with Mikaela finding a black cricket in our garage.  She came running to ask if our bug magnifier was still unpacked.  Unfortunately, it's packed up so she ended up catching it in a glass.

Birds weren't our focus today, but we all love this Victorian Crowned Pigeon.  It's head feathers are so pretty.

Mikaela loves this Urania Moth.  She found it in display about tropical rain forests.

About the only thing cooler than being inches away from jaguars would be getting to meet them face-to-face and pet them.  I'm rather partial of pretty kitties, big and small.

The littles especially enjoyed the penguins, many of which were swimming through the water at eye level.  These little guys are fast swimmers and super cute...though smelly.  Josh kept crouching down to pretend he was underwater with them.

The river otters are always fun to watch.  They were active today.  I got lucky to catch a picture of one out of the water and several pictures of just their head above water.  They are so quick, it is hard to get a good focused photo.

We met this dad (baby behind him is his) who had a very old camera.  It was made in the 1960s.  It didn't even have a built in light meter.  That gadget on the step between them is a light meter; it tells him how much light there is, and has a circular gadget that he can determine aperture and shutter speed based on the light level.  Then it has the old split center focus.  He explained all this to Sam and then let him try focusing the camera, which Sam said was really heavy.

About that time, the zookeepers decided it was feeding time for the bears.  That was really cool because it brought them close to the viewing area.

They also fed these fish in the bear exhibit.  They swim in a small pool immediately against the glass and went absolute berserk when the pellets were through in the water.  It looked like a typically Hollywood piranha feeding frenzy.

Walking around, we happened upon this hawk's training session.  We learned that he can't be placed back into the wild because of a wing injury; he can fly but not well enough to take care of himself in the wild.  He is trained with a whistle and treats at both ends of his flight.  He has a strap attached to his legs that is attached to a long rope that is attached to a gallon jug of water.  That keeps him from flying away before he is fully trained.

No trip to Woodland Park Zoo is complete without climbing this structure.

I found this beautiful tiny flower outside the Komodo Dragon exhibit.  I'd love to know what it is, but my searches are proving futile.   It sure is pretty though.

I love to giraffes and will never forget the time we got to see them from about 10 feet away.  The zookeepers were moving them from their exhibit to another pen-like area.  It required gating off the walkway to let the giraffes through.  We were just on the other side of the gate watching them walk by.  It was the coolest thing! They are much taller up close than they seem to be when looking at them from a distance in their exhibit.

The kids wanted to play in the habitat exploration loop, and we went through the family farm exhibit to get there.  This play area is called Warm CRAWL.  Notice that Josh is not crawling.

We also hit the bug exhibit.  Isn't she cute?  Yeah, only when on the other side of glass.  Spiders are cool and creepy as long as they aren't in my home and definitely not on me.

I've actually handled a couple of these before.

After playing in the habitat area for a while, we headed back through the family farm to get to the exit.  I couldn't resist taking photos of these flowers.  I love daisies.  I love gerbera daisies.  I love daisy-like flowers.  I love close up photography of flowers.  Add in a bug, and it's even cooler.

On the way home, we stopped at Dairy Queen to try their Pumpkin Pie blizzards.  Yum!

When we got home, we were greeted with another kind of critter.  Meet Abby.  She's still angry that her son never left home.

Fritters, Cider, and Fish

We decided to take the kids out for some fun this morning and headed out to Lattin's Country Story and Cider Mill.

As we were getting Maddie's shoes back on (she always takes them off in the car), Sam found a four-leaf clover.  He was so excited.  I don't think I've ever seen one, though I remember being his age and looking for them.

Our first stop was the country store for hot apple fritters.  They were yummy, but I think I prefer fritters room temperature.  We took them outside where we found the yellowjackets were still out in force.  They were very interested in our donuts.  Josh refused to eat his because of the flying menaces.  Sam did very well; at one point he had one perched on his fritter in his hand and he didn't freak.  Josh was freaked out, but Scot talked him out of it, and we headed to his favorite part of the farm.  Between the two, he was able to calm down and enjoy the morning.

Here comes the animal train!  This is Josh's favorite thing at Lattin's.  He insisted on me coming with him.  It's very tight in those cars with an adult my size and a child his size in one car.  He chose the front car, which is the bumpiest too.  I made the mistake of lifting him up instead of getting help.  (I injured my shoulder a few days ago and doing stupid stuff like lifting 50lb kids isn't helping it heal.)

At Josh's request we headed to this building.  He knows there aren't any yellowjackets in there.  They enjoyed feeding the goats.  This one nearly got Maddie's entire bag in one swoop.

The ducklings were the cutest, I think.

After that, we headed out to say hello to the peacocks and turkeys.  Then we found the apple slingshot.  We paid for three apples and let Mika, Sam, and Scott each take a shot.  Meanwhile, Maddie and Josh were playing with the water pumps.  After visiting the little maze we went to say hello to the cows.

This cutie was in a bad mood.  She hit the fence when one of the littles got too close for her.

With it being apple festival, they had quite a lot of little games for the kids to play for the price of a $1 ticket.  We didn't want to spend a ton of money so we didn't stay long; besides, we had a lot of work to get done at home.  But before going home, we had one more stop we wanted to make.

We headed to Tumwater Falls to check on the salmon.  They had plenty in the holding tanks at the top of the falls.  These fish will be donated to the food bank.  There was a Stream Team volunteer there to talk to use about the fish.  He also had polarized glasses (like the paper 3D glasses but polarized) for us to borrow to see the fish better.

Then we headed down stream to see if we could see fish in the river.  We didn't see any jumping (darn), but we did see some below the lower falls digging their redds for their eggs and chasing off the jacks.  While we were down there, the volunteer showed up.  We borrowed his polarized glasses again.

Then he pulled out a set of tubes with salmon eggs and babies at different stages of their life cycle.

It was cool to see the stages of development up close.

After we were done watching the salmon, we headed back up to the parking lot.  We let the kids play on the cement boat play structures in the park a bit before heading back home.

It was a good morning, though it would have been cooler to see the salmon jumping up the fish ladders. 

Lattin's Country Cider Mill and Farm

We went on a field trip to Lattin's Country Cider Mill and Farm today.  It was our first time there, and the kids enjoyed most of it.  We'll definitely go back there, but not until the weather is cooler and wetter.

Normally you wouldn't hear me talking about wanting cooler, wetter weather for an outdoor field trip, but this place is an exception.  You see, jellowjackets have taken over.  The farm is trying their best to deal with it; there were traps everywhere.  That doesn't help Josh.  He was recently stung by one and is now terrified by them, so he spent the first hour, maybe, crying, screaming, and demanding to go home.  NOW!  That part wasn't fun, but I did finally get him calmed down.

While we waited for the group to assemble, the kids played on some coin-operated horses, some spring horses, and some large, cool trikes.  We wandered around visiting some birds they had; I spent a good portion in one hen house because there weren't any wasps in there.

Once the group was assembled, we were taken into the store and greeted by the farm's leader.  While we were there, we were given dixie cups of cider to taste and freshly made apple cider donuts.  They were yummy!  Josh was still traumatized so he refused to try any.

We were then herded back outside to pet bunnies and get our sacks of feed (each child was given a free sack of animal feed to share with the animals).  Josh calmed down enough to pet a bunny, but was still pretty upset.

Maddie couldn't get enough of the bunnies.

Then we headed to the animals.  We saw peacocks:

They had Indian blue peacocks (what you normally see) and some white peacocks, which are Indian peacocks with their coloring bred out of them.   They are gorgeous birds.  We also saw ducks, chickens, baby chicks, pheasants, and turkeys.

Our guide brought out two recently hatched eggs for the kids to see and lightly touch.  The speckled one on the left is a pheasant egg, and the big one on the right is a peacock egg.

He also brought out a newly hatched chick.  It was only two hours old.

Then we went to a small play area with water pumps that all of the kids enjoyed.  There was a small boat and a small wooden fence maze that was really easy, but fun, for the littles.  During this part, I finally got Josh calmed down enough to enjoy most of the rest of our visit.

Josh loved feeding the goats.  He started to forget about the wasps and enjoyed himself.  Maddie also loved the goats.  They had a tall (probably 12 feet) walkway with ramps on both sides.  Attached to the ramps were small buckets on pulleys that you could put feed in and pull up to the goats on the walk way.  The farm used to have a goat that knew how to pull the buckets up itself.  After the goats, we visited a couple more types of birds and the pigs before reaching the animal train.

I think nearly all of the children were hyped about the train.  Josh was back to being uncomfortable because there were a few wasps in the area, but I ended up telling him that he could go on the train ('cause I'm going) or he could wait for me.  He didn't want to leave my side so he came....and loved it.  Maddie sat on Mika's lap for the ride.  Sam managed to get two rides.

Finally, my favorite photo of the day.  During a pit stop for Josh, I captured this tiny spider headed for these flowers.  It was maybe two millimeters long, including legs.

After our trip, we bought some donuts and apple cider to being home.  We were going to eat lunch at the farm, but we decided that we'd be happier eating it on the way home in the car.  We weren't the only ones who made that decision.  We had at least three kids get stung.

If you are interested in going, they are having Apple Festival starting this weekend and every weekend through October.  We're considering going...later in October when the wasps are gone (we hope).