from GA to Mt. St. Helens and Cape Disappointment which was not disappointing

I promised Confessions of UU sinner from UUA GA, but we got so busy and then we haven't had Internet except here and there. I have some time this am and we are visiting the International Kite Museum in Long Beach Washington.
My favorite GA workshops the ones that gave me new ideas like Multi-Generational RE (Be Like a Hummingbird), Changing Worship (The Lovers of Love: UU Sufism, CFL: Creating Worship to Imagine and Act, Thinking Outside the Music Box and Exorcising-Co-Creating Worship) and Transformation Without Apocalypse: A Moral Response to Climate Change with Kathleen Dean Moore. Portland was extremely HOT and so we didn't get out much to do our usual walk through the city.  I wrote a long synopsis of the last minutes of the General Assembly about Black Lives Matter, an Action of Immediate Witness, which I won't post, but I sent it to the Fellowship newsletter and I think the committees that might be interested.  The worse two sins were we didn't stay for much of the night activities and ran out of the WARE lecture by Cornell West because Eliza was stuck 35 minutes away in a campground we had to get back to each night before 10pm when they closed the gates.  The campground was along a cool river which we didn't even get to put our tootsie's in.  The other sin was we didn't stick very well to our vegetarian and only eating free range chicken and meats and sustainable fish because even the restaurants in the industrial district weren't into that...And I thought Portland was so progressive?

Then Mt. St. Helens   I can't tell you the power and beauty of this Volcano, the last of our volcano visits.  Sitting on the ridge across it as it still steams and adds lava to the crater and seeing how nature is so resilient just gives me hope that life will survive no matter.  I couldn't help but cry.   The Native Americans of the region over and over returned and re-settled the area after each eruption through human history, their stories of the two mountains (Mt. Rainier, the quiet wife of Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helen's the tempest wife who threw fire at the quiet wife, the spirits of Spirit Lake) make you want to read more, they are resilient as well. In 1980, after the catastrophic eruption that affected over 200 square miles was devastating, but the animal life survived underground and lupine emerged on the hillside as the mudslides cooled. Wildflower after wildflower.  A newly formed lake Coldwater was cleaned by bacteria after 3 years and life returned. It makes me cry now just thinking about it.

Indian Paint Brush

We saw Ben and Kelsey and had super meals with them.  Kelsey is a fantastic chef.  Pat and I helped a little in the building of their tiny house.  No photos yet, but when it is done Ben promised to send them.  Kelsey is working on plans for building a creamery to make cheese and yogurt so they have a busy year ahead of them.  Right now they are living in a tent on the farm.  Ben's business called Feral Feet Hoof Care is growing and he travels as far as Yakima to trim horse hooves and get them back to bare-feet. Read more below. 

Coldwater Lake made by 1980 eruption

Lupine

Wild Foxglove

St. John's Wort

Cape Disappointment is a stop over to fly kites and walk cold beaches, to get ready for the HOT drive back through the plains and high deserts. We really like this area because of the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center, Confluence Project (Where Columbia River meets Ocean and Chinooks meet Lewis and Clark) and the Discovery Bike Trail. Columbia River Gorge next. Below see photos of the Chinook prayer walk to the old cedar stump. 

Pat flying his kite.

Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment