Volcano @ MindSay

don't hold yourself like that you'll hurt your knees
i kissed your mouth and back that's all i need
don't build your world around volcanoes melt you down
what i am to you is not real
what i am to you you do not need
what i am to you is not what you mean to me
you give me miles and miles of mountains
and i'll ask for the sea
don't throw yourself like that in front of me
i kissed your mouth your back is that all you need?
don't drag my love around volcanoes melt me down
what i am to you is not real
what i am to you you do not need
what i am to you is not what you mean to me
you give me miles and miles of mountains
and i'll ask for the sea
what i give to you is just what i'm going through
this is nothing new no no just another phase of finding
what i really need is what makes me bleed
and like a new disease she's still too young to treat
volcanoes melt me down
she's still too young
i kissed your mouth
you do not need me

Yesterday, after a stressful day at work (these standardized testing days - with crazy schedules and long hours of silent assessment brings out the worst in kids and teachers by the end of the day)- we shook it off by grabbing a picnic basket, bottle of wine, and our geocache box of supplies and heading for the hills....  I had been looking over the local choices and ran across a geocoin that was recently placed in a nearby canyon cache- a National Park geocoin!  Because some of my favoritest places are NPs, I have been considering ways to create geocoins of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.... this was one I wanted to see!  So off we headed to find the cache and pick up the coin!

Along the side of a twisty highway, in the dusky glow of twilight, we climbed among rocks, then picked our way down to the river to enjoy the sounds of the blurbling water

to claim this little beauty:

finding another "volcano" site may be a challenge- but I'll find a connection to move it along.

In the meantime, I looked up the company that made this coin and am excited to see that they have a series of NP coins- most are no longer available for purchase, however.  I bought a Zion NP geocoin- the newest in the collection.  What fun!  Hopefully I will have better luck getting one sent on its way to an adventure (my first travel bug is stuck with the first person who picked it up!  That is another story . . .)

Perhaps I'll send the volcano geocoin up to Washington - to mingle with Mt St Helens!

Have gotten in 6 caches in the past two days. . . . tomorrow I will tie or pass up my mindsay geocaching buddy and mentor iliketiedye . . . . seems like only yesterday I was lamenting the frustration of not being able to find even one of two I tried to find on my first trip out!  It was her encouragement and sense of humor that kept me going- and got me hooked!  (Shared the volcano coin and story in classes today, so I'm passing the bug along! ).  Thanks Julie- I think of you every time I'm out there walking around in circles talking to myself!

Officials are closely monitoring the volcano's activity

The Colombian authorities are urging several thousand people to leave their homes on the slopes and foothills of a volcano that is spewing ash and smoke.

A state of maximum alert is in force around the Galeras volcano in the south-west of the country.

About 2,000 people from nearby villages have so far been taken to shelters.

The last major eruption from Galeras, one of Colombia's most active volcanoes, killed nine people in 1993, including scientists monitoring it.

An explosion of rock and gas from the volcano on Wednesday prompted the local authorities to step up plans to evacuate the surrounding areas.

Television pictures showed thick clouds of ash over the city of Pasto, whose 400,000 residents live about 8km (5 miles) from the volcano.

The Vulcanological Observatory in Pasto is monitoring the situation and latest reports from the area say the volcano's activity has now lessened.

The Galeras volcano, 520km (320 miles) south-west of the capital, Bogota, has a long history of activity.

Last November, it spewed ash that fell up to 50km (30 miles) away.

I took this once we got to the trail head. I forget what they call the area where a glacier used to be...

The rest of that little valley.

There's a chipmunk in here somewhere. it was the only life other than bugs that we saw up there. no scat, no birds. (i mean at the top. lower towards the beginning is where I took the picture of the bear print in Part 1.)

I took these last three on the way back down. Here's another of Mt. Rainiers many glacier melts.

Brian and some pretty flowers.

When we were destroying the snow chunk they're laying on, Brian found these eggs. By the way they looked, we figured that they'd fallen there sometime months before and then snow condinuted to fall on them.

ok, I have only eight more pictures to post after this and they're all from our last day in Seattle last Saturday!

Another very green lake through the trees at the bottom.

So incase you were wondering, it was 80 degrees F outside that day, and most of the trail looked like this:

Doesn't this moss almost look like hair?!