Like Whatever Gen-X
Remember the 1980s and 1990s and all things Gen-X. Take a stroll down memory lane, drink from a hose, and ride until the street lights come on. We discuss the past, present, and future of the forgotten generation. From music to movies and television, to the generational trauma we all experienced we talk about it all. Take a break from today and travel back to the long hot summer days of nostalgia. Come on slackers, fuck around and find out with us!
Like Whatever Gen-X
Harry Vs The Volcano
The catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, stands as one of nature's most dramatic displays of power – and one of humanity's most compelling stories of warning signs ignored.
From the moment the first earthquakes rumbled beneath the symmetrical peak in March 1980, scientists knew something unprecedented was brewing. Over two months, they tracked hundreds of tremors, witnessed the mountain's north face bulge outward at an alarming rate, and desperately tried to convince residents to evacuate the danger zone. Most listened. A few didn't.
Among the holdouts was Harry R. Truman, an 83-year-old lodge owner who, along with his 16 cats, refused to abandon his beloved Spirit Lake at the mountain's base. "If the mountain goes, I'm going with it," he famously declared, becoming a folk hero through countless media interviews. His stubbornness captivated America – children sent him fan mail, musicians wrote songs about him, and he even received marriage proposals.
When the mountain finally blew with the force of 500 atomic bombs, it triggered the largest landslide in recorded history. The lateral blast traveled at 300 miles per hour, flattening forests, melting glaciers, and sending ash 16 miles into the atmosphere. Darkness fell on cities hundreds of miles away as 57 people, including Truman, perished in the catastrophe.
But equally fascinating is the story of recovery. We explore how life returned to this lunar landscape – from wind-blown spiders to an ingenious experiment where scientists introduced pocket gophers for just one day. Those few hours of furry excavation yielded extraordinary results, with hundreds of thousands of plants thriving in gopher-worked areas while adjacent zones remained barren.
Today, Mount St. Helens stands as both a monument to destruction and a laboratory of rebirth. The youngest glacier on Earth now grows within its crater, while scientists continue monitoring the volcano's gradual rebuilding – having regained only 7% of its lost mass in four decades. It's a humbling reminder of nature's timescales and regenerative power.
Join us for this exploration of geological forces, human stubbornness, and the remarkable resilience of an ecosystem reborn from catastrophic destruction. You'll never look at volcanoes – or gophers – the same way again.
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Two best friends we're talking the past, from mistakes to arcades. We're having a blast. Teenage dreams, neon screens, it was all rad and no one knew me Like you know. It's like whatever. Together forever, we're never done as ever, laughing and sharing our stories. Forever We'll take you back. It's like whatever.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Like Whatever a podcast for. By and about Gen X. I'm Nicole and this is my BFF, heather. Hello, so how was your week it?
Speaker 2:was better. We're moving up, getting better. Glad to hear it. I'm not going to talk about it, but it's getting better.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep, good, good, good.
Speaker 2:For all you ladies that are in your 50s, this is just getting old real quick. I'm hot one second. I'm freezing cold the next. I'm hot one second. I'm freezing cold the next. I can't take it.
Speaker 1:I've been having some really gnarly hot flashes the past few days, this last week the hot flashes have been brutal.
Speaker 2:I have just been the most angry person on the face of the earth. I mean just like literally for any reason. I mean just like literally for any reason. I mean you know normally I'm an angry person, but it's like heightened to the nth degree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds difficult for you.
Speaker 2:It is. I try when I'm out in public to contain it.
Speaker 1:That's not working out very well, some people are just asking for it. You know what? Most people are just asking for it, anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not working out very well. Some people are just asking for it. You know what Most people are just asking for it. Anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we have a new Pope since our last recording. We do have a new Pope.
Speaker 2:He's a Chicago Pope. He is a Chicago Pope, the first American Pope.
Speaker 1:That's crazy right.
Speaker 2:He was not in any of the running that we had None of the numbers.
Speaker 1:It is the craziest thing to hear him speak with an American accent. I have not heard him speak, but I can imagine it.
Speaker 2:It's really weird. It's crazy. He seems like he's going to be an okay guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he seems very, very loved, and I mean all his friends call him Bob.
Speaker 2:It seems like that's the direction the Catholic Church has decided to take, because it was only what?
Speaker 1:four they only did four votes.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, obviously it's. I think he's a little bit more open minded as the Catholic Church goes Right right as open minded as you can get. Being Pope, yeah, yeah, catholic church goes right.
Speaker 1:you know, as open-minded as you can get, yeah yeah so and it's been cool seeing the coverage of like his brothers like here.
Speaker 1:It's just so crazy for them it has to be crazy, right yeah, I was watching um something at the news last night or the night before um, and they were some news. Uh, newscasters were interviewing one of the brothers and while they were interviewing him, the pope called his brother like facetimed him on his tablet. So the brother answered and, uh, the pope said hi to him and he was like just so, you know, you know, I'm, we're being filmed right now. I have a news crew here. And he was like just so, you know, you know I'm, we're being filmed right now. I have a news crew here. And he is like pope goes, like right now. I told my husband. I was like, thank god he didn't answer the phone, was like hey, motherfucker, I'm the motherfucking pope I know. Right, like that would be crazy, like you're like if it was your sibling or whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, you could just be like well, I guess I'm going to heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would not answer my sibling's phone call while being filmed.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Never know what's going to come out of her mouth, so yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 2:That was definitely out of of nowhere, out of left field, and I love how everybody's claiming him like pennsylvania's claiming him. I saw one that was like as soon as the pope says, go birds, I'm gonna start going back to church especially if it works. I don't think he's probably an eagles fan.
Speaker 1:I think he's probably a the bears yeah, he is a white socks fan, so you know the probably the bears probably use all the help they can get, yes, so hey, maybe it's their year, maybe they got the pope and hey man, we play the bears when it's great.
Speaker 2:I know they're crazy season. It's going to be like you think. The Immaculate Reception was impressive.
Speaker 1:Just wait. They use that word a little prematurely.
Speaker 2:We really are going to have an immaculate season.
Speaker 1:I watched a good Netflix series, since I like to share all my lazy time watching shows, but it's Four Seasons. It is based on the movie Four Seasons, if you'll remember, with Alan Alda.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you say that, because that was just on our. It popped up on our TV and we couldn't remember it. But it's Carol Burnett, right.
Speaker 1:I believe so. So this show is alan alda's involved in it somehow, um, with production or something, I don't know. Tina fey is in it, um, steve carell there's a lot of good people in it, but it was, it was excellent. It's really a definitely a gen x type show, um, because it's people our age and where they're at with their relationships and their marriages and their kids, and I have to watch it, yeah, and it. It was neat and it. But my husband and I were cracking up the whole time because the one couple is just us, like a million percent, like I'm watching it, like I really need this couple to make it to the end, like still be good at the end because I'm connecting too hard.
Speaker 1:I mean, there were moments we had to pause it and laugh because it was just so you so so us, um. So yeah, I would highly recommend it, but it it also was kind of um disheartening because my relationship is so stereotypical that it's in a movie, a tv show script.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's a bad thing yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker 1:But when you're feeling your feelings and you're angry, you're like you're the worst. But no, it's just how everybody is.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, right. At least you don't have crazy on your side. I guess you used to. The only fun and exciting thing I found is the other night. I don't know if it popped up on the Facebook or what, but it is Star Trek spirits, wine and spirits, and I needed them all, I don't drink that much I drink. Literally the only time I drink is when I do my shots of Fireball right before we record that is literally the only time.
Speaker 2:But they have Romulan ale it's vodka and it's blue andball right before we record. That is literally the answer. But they have romulan ale it's vodka and it's blue and I need it. And they have klingon blood wine and I don't like it's. I think it was a cab. I don't like red wine at all, but I need it because it says klingon blood wine and they have a chateau picard.
Speaker 2:It was 2, 22, 41 and I forget the other one, what the other year was, but I needed them and the bottles are beautiful well, you would definitely drink the vodka.
Speaker 1:I would, yes, it is your drink of choice it is my drink of choice blue vodka in particular.
Speaker 2:It's lovely but yeah, I need, I need it um, but it's expensive, so to hold off wait till I get, so y'all gotta make us famous, so I can buy romeo and ale because it is illegal yeah, I uh oh, I went to um a edgar allen post speakeasy you were saying on friday night how'd that go um?
Speaker 1:well, first of all, it didn't start till 10 o'clock and I am proud to say that me and my friend made it like that's too late. Yeah, drove home safe and everything that's too late. It's two hours, right, uh-huh, um. So it's a like a traveling circus kind of thing. It's just five people, um, there were four men and one girl and they're all probably mid-20s I would guess, and they do everything. So this one was held in like a um kind of a wedding venue with a barn. So they set up the barn and that's where the show was.
Speaker 1:Um, so they had different tables with like baby dolls and edgar allen poe stuff and they had this really old looking paper and a feather pen for everybody to sign in when they came in, but it wasn't like orderly in a book, it was just random sheets of paper and everybody was just writing stuff and all the lighting was cool, you know purple and green and blue and red. And then so they set all that up and you come in and they serve. They did four readings, dramatic readings, sure, and each reading had its own drink that went with it. Oh, that's cool, yep, so they would come out, serve the cocktails, go in the back. Somebody would come up, do the little intro for what was coming up and then quote the raven nevermore that was one that they did imagine.
Speaker 1:That they did black cat, um telltale heart, yes, which is probably my favorite because I've always connected with it, because that would totally be me the guilt, my anxiety, not the guilt. I don't think the anxiety of them finding it like I'm just gonna go ahead and tell them because I can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're gonna find out eventually, so that's why I'll never commit a crime with nicole, yeah, yeah yeah, it wouldn't be the guilt it's no, I would never squeal on you, but they would break you easy. I'm glad you know that about me I already do.
Speaker 2:Okay, I am impossible to break, but I was gonna say if I ever kill anybody, I am a million percent having you. I can lock it down forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I know that that's the italian side of me.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, there are no right here yeah, so let's see telltale heart, the raven black cat, oh and uh, mask of the red death. Yeah, they were really, really good, and my favorite drink was a bourbon with cream cinnamon. It had an anista in it, oh my gosh, it was so good. I can't do whiskey. It was really, really fun, though we had an absolute blast. And then yesterday I went all the way to Philly to go to a Phillies game and it got postponed until today. So we did go to Reading Terminal Market.
Speaker 2:I saw on Facebook.
Speaker 1:And we had lunch and moseyed around and came back home and then the game's being replayed tonight. But all three of us were like meh and came back home and then the game's being replayed tonight. Yeah, but all three of us were like meh, like maybe if it wasn't cold and rainy again today it's a terrible day. Yeah, if it was a bright, sunny day maybe we would have tried to make it work. But really it's funny. I'm old now. Yesterday was enough.
Speaker 1:I can't drive to Philly again Two days in a row. Are you crazy girl? I hear you.
Speaker 2:My mom is always like oh, I really missed the season tickets and I'm like I miss going to the game. I do not miss the three hour drive at one o'clock in the morning I do not miss every home. Yes, I don't miss the walking seven and a half miles to the stadium I do not miss sitting out in the freezing freaking ass cold or the blazing ass heat. Yes, I do not miss any of that I do. If I could just teleport there and then teleport back yes, but that drive to philly is just especially for, like a night game.
Speaker 2:And then then, on top of it, the night games are just so rowdy, and so I just I can't do it anymore yeah, and she has the benefit of just sitting there, so she doesn't have to do any of that she does teleport from there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, exactly no, I can't.
Speaker 2:I can't do it anymore. Yeah, it's too much, especially eight games a year. All right, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean, the older you get, the better it is on tv yeah, it really is. You can see everything, yeah they replay it, and now with the.
Speaker 2:You know what you're. You're closer on your tv than you are in in real life. Oh yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm just old.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'm just a terrible fan, but can't do it. You did your time.
Speaker 1:I did 25 years, I did my time yeah.
Speaker 2:Ended, one stadium opened another. No more, can't do it Too old. Was that all you had for this week?
Speaker 1:The only other thing I wanted to say was Happy Belated Mother's Day to everyone. I had a really nice day, just relaxed. I heard from all of my kids. My son lives in California so I couldn't see him. My middle daughter and her husband Came over and cooked me dinner and my youngest Works in a restaurant, so she had to work all day. My middle daughter and her husband came over and cooked me dinner and my youngest works in a restaurant, so she had to work all day because it's Mother's Day.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it was awful she was sending me texts.
Speaker 1:I was like I do not miss working Mother's Day in a restaurant, but she door dashed me a box of insomnia cookies, because I guess that's what the 22 year olds are doing.
Speaker 2:They door dash. You know what? I was door dashing on Sunday and it was nothing but going to Food Lion and picking up flowers and I was going to start doing those. And then on the Facebook page for people, I was reading it and they were like don't do the shopping, there's no flowers left, it's a pain in the ass. You got to pick through crap. It takes too long and I was like all righty. Then that will not be happening for me, but I mean it makes total.
Speaker 1:I mean, at this point I just never really thought of it like I was. I heard, or my ring, let me know somebody was at the front door and I was like did somebody send me flowers?
Speaker 2:That was another thing. Floor shops you could pick up at florists too and door dash it. I don't know, it's crazy. I didn't I grew weary of it real quick.
Speaker 1:So I was like you know what.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to go sit in my house by myself, just stare at the tv, because it's your favorite thing to do. It really is my. I did get a happy mother's day from my stepdaughter, so oh a happy momster day. Oh yes, because she calls me step monster that is so sweet I'm her, I, I, I asked her to call me that at first and she was like really. And I was like I mean, would you expect anything different from?
Speaker 1:me and she was like nope so.
Speaker 2:I'm her stepmomster, but so I did get a happy Mother's Day from her.
Speaker 1:That was very kind yes.
Speaker 2:The dogs didn't, the bird didn't. Ungrateful bitches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Always yeah, Okay. So now that we got that out of the way, let us first, before I say what I'm going to say, I did not tell her until a half an hour ago what the subject was.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited she doesn't ever read it anyway. So I don't know. I don't even know why I bothered sending anything. So let's fuck around and find out about Mount St Helens. Heather loves a disaster. My sources are USGSgov and visit MountStHelenscom. Both are really good sites and really informative. I so badly want to go. Those of you that live out there that listen. I want to come out.
Speaker 1:I want to see it.
Speaker 2:So Mount St Helens, it was 8,364 feet currently Well, actually not currently, but 9,677 feet before it erupted.
Speaker 2:It's located in southwestern Washington, about 50 miles northeast of Portland, oregon. Also, I want to go to Portland. It's one of several lofty volcanic peaks that dominate the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest. Geologists call Mount St Helens a composite volcano or stratovolcano. Call Mount St Helens a composite volcano or stratovolcano a term for a steep-sided, often symmetrical cone constructed of alternating layers of lava flows, ash and other volcanic debris. Composite volcanoes tend to erupt explosively and pose considerable danger to nearby life and property. In contrast, the gentle, sloping shield volcanoes such as those in Hawaii, typically erupt non-explosively, producing fluid lavas that can flow great distances from the active vents.
Speaker 1:I don't think I really realized that I did not either. It just never really occurred to me.
Speaker 2:Me either, and so when I was learning about it, I was like that makes total sense. It does make sense.
Speaker 1:Like I wonder if Pompeii was a cone.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I didn't look it up. It had to have been because it sent ash everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was fast.
Speaker 2:Yes, from my understanding, when it's a cone, I guess it doesn't have a vent, so it blows as your husband said earlier, I can't believe you're going to give me that I am.
Speaker 1:I'm giving him credit.
Speaker 2:It's an earth zit, but the ones in Hawaii, like you can fly over them and see down in them and they're always like spewing lava and stuff. They're just a constant vent, I guess, and this one's not Makes sense. Yeah, I never thought about it either. And then, when I was doing this, I was like, oh, you know what?
Speaker 1:How about that?
Speaker 2:Now I know something about volcanoes. The ones in Hawaii may destroy property, but they rarely cause death or injury because they're so slow. Not slow, but you know it's coming, you know it's coming. Mount St Helens and other active cascade volcanoes and those of Alaska compromise the North American segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a notorious zone that produces frequent, often destructive earthquake volcanic activity. I love, I have always loved that phrase the Ring of Fire.
Speaker 1:Yes For that, yes, the whole Pacific. Yes, somebody really nailed it when they really did probably it was probably natives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be my guess for sure. Um, mount saint helens is the youngest of the major cascade volcanoes, in the sense that it is visible. Cone was entirely formed during the past 2200 years, well after the melting of the last of the eight ice age glaciers about 10 000 years ago. Mount st helens smooth, symmetrical slopes are little affected by erosion as compared with its older, more glacially scarred neighbors mount rainier and mount adam in adams in washington and mount hood in oregon. The local indigenous people and early settlers in the then sparsely populated region witnessed the occasional violent outbursts of Mount St Helens. The most recent of the pre-1980 eruptive activity began in 1800 with an explosive eruption followed by several additional minor explosions and extrusions of lava, and ended with the formation of the Goat Rocks Lava Dome by 1857.
Speaker 2:Cool, so now I'm going to give you the history. 300,000 years ago. We're going to go back in time. Wow, the stratovolcano known as Mount St Helens or I wrote this phonetically down there Lutolata. Lutolata Formed when the Juan de Fuco tectonic plates subducted under the North American one. So that's, of course, how all mountain ranges are formed, where they bump plates.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that's earthquakes and all that happy geological shit. So if you're a geologist, maybe turn this off. It's not going to be good for you. You're going to be screaming at us 1850 BCE, which I did not realize that we were now doing BCE, which is before the common era.
Speaker 1:I had heard that.
Speaker 2:I knew we had changed it and it was no longer before Christ, which is what BC was before right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not doing that anymore, right.
Speaker 1:So now it's BCE Supposedly Right. I don't see a big push to make it.
Speaker 2:The Mount St Helens website uses. Bce. Good for them. So that is before the Common Era. The volcano experiences what scientists consider its biggest eruption ever Of 5 to 10 cubic kilometers of material, about 5 to 10 times bigger than 1980. Bigger than 1980, a thousand bce. A series of lava flows begin to form the edifice we now known as mount st helens, making the peak younger than the great pyramids of giza wow, I know it's so crazy when you think about this shit and you're like hold on what it's so hard to wrap your head around.
Speaker 2:It really is like it's just you're that, but that's been there forever. No, that's crazy. 1792. Explorer George Vancouver names the peak after fellow Brit Alian Fitzherbert Baron, st Helens, sure, but the local Native American tribe, the Cowalitz tribe, had long called it Luleta or Smoker.
Speaker 1:In the 50s.
Speaker 2:That's a much better name. Yes, A hundred percent. In the 50s through the 70s they kind of just jammed that all together. There must not have been a whole lot of shit happening in those years, or no one cared. Spirit Lake at the foot of the mountain becomes a camping and fishing destination lined with cabins, a YMCA camp and Mount St Helen's Lodge run by a colorful World War I vet, Harry Truman.
Speaker 1:No not that Harry Truman, because I fell for it for a second.
Speaker 2:It's a different Harry Truman, and we'll talk about him later. 1975, the US Geological Survey geologists forecasted that Mount St Helens would erupt again, possibly before the end of the century. Foreshadowing In the spring of 1980, geologists converged on Vancouver, washington, including 30-year-old US geology survey volcanologist and University of Washington PhD grad, david A Johnston. He showed up because no one's ever been able to study an eruption like this up close before. There's a reason for that, also foreshadowing he did not.
Speaker 1:He might have seen it up close, but he didn't live to tell about it.
Speaker 2:So March 1980, magnitude 4.1 earthquake signals a reawakening eruption of ash and steam. March 16th is the first sign of activity. A hundred earthquakes in a week. I know I don't know about you people up there. I know you get earthquakes and I can't even imagine a fucking earth how do you even know when one ends and one starts? A hundred in a week. I don't know, that's scary. When I went to alaska like I was like please do not have an earth.
Speaker 1:I don't know why I'm so fucking scared of earthquakes, but oh, I was in an earthquake in san francisco no, thank you yeah, when I went out there I don't know eight, nine, ten years ago, ten more than that, um, anyway. Uh, we were staying in like a high-rise hotel in the middle of the city and I was in the shower and my youngest daughter was in bed still sleeping and I felt a rump, like I thought it was somebody pushing a cleaning cart or something down the hallway like it was rumbled like that and then I got out of the shower and all over the news we had just had an earthquake and like stuff fell off the shelves and stuff like it was strong enough for that I in in lower in stores and things like that.
Speaker 1:Nothing fell in our hotel room, I don't think we have that one here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that cracked the um. The washington monument in dc gave it a little. I didn't feel that I don't know why I was at the restaurant.
Speaker 1:I don't know if because the floor is cut, I don't know, but I was like the only one that didn't notice it I was in, I was driving, but I was lucky that I was at a stop sign, because I was sitting at a stop sign and I honestly, god, thought somebody had run up and was jumping up and down on my back bumper. And I'm looking all in the mirrors and there's nothing there and I was like what was that bumper?
Speaker 1:and I'm looking all in the mirrors and there's nothing there and I was like what was that ghost?
Speaker 2:yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know why earthquakes bother me so much. We, I mean I it's scary. I mean I guess because you're not, it's not something you're familiar. I'm sure if you live over there and you've experienced them a million times in your life, then you, you probably are more scared of a hurricane or although tornadoes is like the worst, the worst. There's no way. I could no live, I'm never going.
Speaker 2:Sorry guys who live in tornado alley I could not do it but again, I guess, if you grow up there, I guess I mean well, I mean so for them, probably you know it's what it runs over your house in like three seconds, five seconds, whereas a hurricane is like a good sustained four or five hours of wind. Yeah, true. Well, we don't get that here, so we don't get the big hurricanes here, so we actually don't have. I'll stop saying that, because we'll get a tsunami tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I'll be at work floating around in the mail truck, because I'm pretty sure that will float. Uh, okay, so that was march, the 100 earthquakes in a week. March 24th 20 earthquakes in an hour. So I don't know how you would not know, it was all the same earthquake.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:March 27th, a 250-foot crater opened. Ooh. March 28th 12 more eruptions. March 30th 93 explosions in one day. So if you don't see this coming, Right, Like, okay, come on now.
Speaker 2:Because I remember it it's way. When I did the research on it it was way different than what I actually remembered it in my brain because I thought it, just like I knew that they had warning, because I've seen I'll talk about the docudrama later, but I've seen that a couple times and I knew they they had, they knew it was coming and they told people but it was like nobody believed it. But when researching it I feel like it was a lot less dramatic. I mean, people died, right, people die in every disaster.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The hurricane takes four days to get here and they tell everybody to get out of the bowl that they're living in because it's going to fill with water. Yeah, People died, so you know you can't. Anyway.
Speaker 1:Sorry, New Orleans. You did warn us that you've been angry. Don't give a look.
Speaker 2:I am going to do Katrina because I have to get it out of my brain. Katrina is like Katrina I don't know what the word for it is Is just I cannot ever stop thinking about katrina okay, ever. There's one person in particular in the whole katrina nonsense that haunts me I mean haunts me. His name is hardy jackson. He haunts me. I just I can never get the images of Katrina. The whole way, the whole thing was just fucking blown and it just Katrina. Yeah. So prepare yourselves because I'm going to be angry on that one. April 1st 1980. Plumes of ash and steam reach 20,000 feet. See again, I don't remember any, I just remember it blowing.
Speaker 1:Well you would have been five, I know, but I remember a lot, that's true, I might have been living in a van.
Speaker 2:No, I was in school by then. Yeah, you think, yeah, uh. April 3rd, the crater grew to about 1,300 feet in diameter. April 8th explosions last four hours the longest yet, like four hours, again four hours of explosions. You got to think to yourself yeah, this bitch is going to blow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're just down there watching your stories eating your lunch.
Speaker 2:You know you're getting 100 in a day.
Speaker 1:Well, probably part of the problem is you don't know when, and it's happening gradually and slowly, like when a wildfire is coming coming at your house and your tires are melting on your car. You know you gotta go.
Speaker 2:It's time to go go um april 22nd, eruption average drops to one per day from one per hour see that's. That's when you gotta worry in a some prepping in some point in april, which I didn't give a date officials designate red, which is dangerous, and blue, which is permitted workers only zones around the mountain and most residents are evacuated. So in april they're like oh yeah, this shit's gonna go.
Speaker 2:This is, this is gonna be a problem. May 7th to may 17th, small eruptions resume. More than 10 000 occurred and the north flank grew outward 450 feet to form a prominent bulge growing six and a half feet a day. This was evidence that magma had risen high into the volcano. Also, it is the Earth's it. I love it, I don't care. May 18th 1980 at 830 am, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale triggered a gigantic landslide on the mountains. North-based the north slope fell away in an avalanche the largest debris avalanche ever recorded. That was followed and overtaken by a lateral air blast which carried a high-velocity cloud of superheated ash and stone outwarded 15 miles.
Speaker 1:It didn't travel the ground. No that's the air and the ash.
Speaker 2:Okay, it started and yeah, it blew it, and that's the air. The land it was, but it wasn't moving quite at 300 miles an hour. Right, the avalanche and lateral blast were followed by mud flows, pyroclastic flows and floods that buried the river valleys around Mount St Helens in deep layers of mud and debris as far as 17 miles away. So the landslide made it 17 miles, the hot air made it 15. So eventually, the landslide beat it, the landslide dang beat it. The lateral blast devastated an early area, nearly 372 square miles, in an inner zone extending six miles from the summit. Virtually no trees remained of a dense forest. Beyond this area, all standing trees were blown down and at the blast's outer limits the remaining trees were seared. Pyroclastic flows poured out of the crater at 50 to 80 miles per hour and spread five miles to the north, creating the Pumice Plain. Meanwhile, simultaneous with the blast, a vertical eruption of gas and ash formed a column some 16 miles high that produced ash falls as far as central Montana.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Complete darkness occurred in Spokane, Washington, about 250 miles northeast of the volcano Laheres, which I also phonetically spelled out Laheres, laheres formed when hot rocks and gas melted the snow and ice on the volcano flowing down river valleys around the volcano.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know I was like oh shit, yeah, there's like snow and shit that's got to go somewhere. The largest and most destructive Laher occurred in the North Fork of the Tuttle River. The Laher's destroyed bridges and homes, eventually flowing into the Cowlitz River, which in turn flowed into thetle River. The La Jers destroyed bridges and homes, eventually flowing into the Cowlitz River, which in turn flowed into the Columbia River. 57 people died, largely from asphyxiation, mostly in areas outside the red and blue zones. Shows how much they know. They should have probably made those areas wider.
Speaker 2:Most fishing, camping and hiking. So that's where my problem is Don't do that. The eruptive event ends about nine hours later, after a column of ash rises 18 miles in the air and some 1,300 feet of mountain blows off, reducing the height of Mount St Helens to 8,366 feet. 540 million tons of ash fall in total.
Speaker 1:This is so interesting because it's nothing I've ever really thought about before, so all this information is just like wow you know it blew and you know people died Right and you can watch it on.
Speaker 2:YouTube they have video and you can. You can watch it right on uh youtube. They have video of it, you can watch it. I did so remember harry r truman from earlier uh. He was born in october of 1896 and died may 18th 1980 he was an American businessman, bootlegger and prospector.
Speaker 2:He lived near Mount St Helens and was the owner and caretaker of Mount St Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake, near the base of the mountain. Truman came to fame as a folk hero in the weeks leading up to the volcano's eruption, after refusing to leave his home, despite repeated orders to evacuate his home, despite repeated orders to evacuate. Although Truman was already well known by local residents for his various antics, he became an even bigger celebrity. During the two months of volcanic activity preceding the deadly eruption, truman gave several interviews to reporters and expressed his opinion that the danger of a volcanic eruption was exaggerated. I don't have any idea whether it will blow, he said, but I don't believe it to the point that I'm gonna pack up. Truman displayed little concern about the volcano and his situation. If the mountain goes, I'm going with it. This area is heavily timbered. Spirit lake is in between me and the mountain and the mountain is a mile away. The mountain ain't going to hurt me.
Speaker 1:Well, you said it probably didn't hurt. That's true.
Speaker 2:I didn't say that yet.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't get that Foreshadowing.
Speaker 2:Spoiler alert. Law enforcement and Forest Service officials were frustrated by his refusal to evacuate, because the media continued to enter the volcano's restricted zone to interview him, endangering themselves in the process. Still, truman remained steadfast. You couldn't pull me out with the mule team, the mountain's part of truman and truman's part of that mountain that's right. He told reporters that he was knocked from his bed by precursor earthquakes, so he responded by moving his bed to the basement he was uh, um, what's the word?
Speaker 1:I'm looking for problem solver.
Speaker 2:I guess that was the problem solved. Damn, your damn earthquakes keep knocking me out of bed. I'm gonna move my bed to the basement under the earth. He claimed to wear spurs to bed to cope with the earthquake. While he slept it held him in the back. He wrote it like a. He was quite. You can look up a lot of his stuff. Yeah, he was the salt of the earth. He scoffed at the public's concern for his safety, responding to scientists' claim about the threat of the volcano that the mountain had shot its wad and it hadn't hurt my place a bit. But those goddamn geologists with their hair down to their butts wouldn't pay no attention to old Truman. Goddamn hippies, yep. As a result of his defiant commentary, truman became an impromptu folk hero and was the subject of many songs and poems by children. Really, this is just two months, like, literally. It's like March to May. Wow, he is the og influencer literally went out in a ball of fire.
Speaker 2:He literally had 15 minutes of pain yeah one group of school children from salem oregon, sent him banners inscribed harry, we love you, which moved him so much that he took a helicopter trip, arranged and paid for by national national geographic, to visit them on may 14th. He also received many fan letters, including several marriage proposals. A group of fifth grade students from grand blanc, michigan, wrote letters that brought him to tears. In return, he sent them a letter and volcanic ash, which the children later sold to send flowers to his family after the eruption.
Speaker 1:That had to have been so traumatizing for those kids. Yes, like you just met this man four days ago. Yes, and he's your hero.
Speaker 2:Yes, and now he's gone.
Speaker 1:It's like the challenger, I know.
Speaker 2:So to that. I don't know. If you don't, you're not on the tickety-tock. So there's apparently some influencer or someone going around saying that we're all lying about the Challenger, that we didn't sit in class and watch it happen, and then they just wheeled it out and we went on about our day. The whole lot of us, all of everyone who has the exact same story. We all must have gotten together pre-influence do they know?
Speaker 1:there's video like actual video of kids sitting sitting in classrooms and you know, google is your friend.
Speaker 2:Truman calls a media frenzy. Appearing on the front pages of the New York Times and the San Francisco Examiner and attracting the attention of National Geographic, united Press International and the Today Show. Many major magazines composed profiles, including Time, life, newsweek, field and Stream, and Reader's Digest. I fucking love Reader's Digest. I know we've talked about Reader's Digest before.
Speaker 1:That was my favorite, me too, from a very early age, I know. I think the comedic little paragraphs were my favorite, the funny little short stories.
Speaker 2:Love Reader's.
Speaker 1:Digest yeah.
Speaker 2:Historian Richard W Slata wrote that his fiery attitude, brash speech, love of the outdoors and fierce independence made him a folk hero the media could adore. He pointed to truman's unbendable character and response to the force of nature as a source of his rise to fame, and the interviews with him added color to reports about the events at Mount St Helens. Truman was immortalized, according to Slata, with many of the embellished qualities of the Western hero, and the media spotlight created a persona that was in some ways quite different from his true character. Spoiler alert he died. Spoiler alert he died. As the likelihood of a major eruption increased, staff officials ordered an evacuation of that area, with the exception of a few scientists and security officials. On saturday, may 17th, local law enforcement made one final attempt to persuade truman to leave his home, to no avail on sunday, may 18th, which May 18th this year is almost Sunday also.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the 45th anniversary. I don't think they call it an anniversary. What do they call it?
Speaker 1:Well, what do they call 9-11?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't remember.
Speaker 2:That was terrible. That was a terrible joke. That was awful. Too soon 22, 34 years later however long it's been anyway um. On sunday, may 18th, at 8 32, mount st helens erupted, collapsing the entire north flank of the mountain. Truman and all of his 16 cats were all presumed to have died in the eruption no not the cats.
Speaker 2:All 16 of his cats. He had 16 cats. I thought I put that in there but I might have deleted it out because I thought I don't know what. I thought Truman and his 16 cats were all presumed to have died in the eruption. All likely died of heat shock in less than a second, too quickly to register the pain. So that's good news it is good and he was really old. I don't know about the cats, they probably weren't old.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, I know it's cliche, but talk about diane doing what you love like that's true story.
Speaker 2:He had the museum and everything like, or in and he had the end at the bottom. Yeah, yeah, I just it's crazy.
Speaker 1:What else was he going to do? Go live somewhere else, exactly.
Speaker 2:I think probably when you get that old you're just like I got to die of something Right. Right Sounds good to me. It's going to go quick. Yeah, it's better than a long drawn out cancer like I'm gonna have.
Speaker 2:The largest landslide in recorded history and pyro classic flow traveling atop the landslide engulfed the spirit lake area almost simultaneously, destroying the lake and burying the site of truman's lodge under 150 feet of volcanic landslide debris. Authorities never searched for truman's remains. Truman considered his cat's family and mentioned them in almost all public statements. Initially, truman's friends hoped that he possibly survived, as he had claimed to have provisioned a nearby abandoned mine shaft with food and liquor in case of an eruption. But the lack of any immediate warning of the eruption would almost certainly have prevented him from escaping to the shaft before the flow reached his lodge less than a minute after the eruption began. Even if truman had made it there, the landslide would have made any rescue impossible.
Speaker 2:Truman's sister, geraldine, said that she found it hard to accept the reality of his death. I don't think he made it, but I thought if they would let me fly over and see for myself that Harry's Lodge is gone, then maybe I'd believe it for sure. Truman's niece, shirley Rosen, added that her uncle thought he could escape the volcano but was not expecting the lateral eruption. The lateral eruption. She stated that her sister took him a bottle of bourbon whiskey to persuade him to evacuate, but he was too afraid to drink the alcohol at the time because he was unsure whether the shaking was coming from his body or the earthquake so she brought him the whiskey to try to get him to leave.
Speaker 1:Yes, but then she just left the whiskey there with him, like why didn't she hold it and walk backwards? Towards the car and be like come and get it little shots on the throw it in the car.
Speaker 2:When he jumps in for it, just lock the door. No, we're just going to the liquor store. Truman owned a second home located between washagow and steson Washington.
Speaker 1:Sorry if.
Speaker 2:I just fucked that up. Washagow and his possessions were auctioned off there as keepsakes to admirers in September of 1980.
Speaker 1:All right, I didn't know that he had another house. Mm-hmm, all right, I'm going to say he was ready to go.
Speaker 2:He was ready to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Truman's friend, john Garrity, added the mountain and the lake were his life. If he'd left and saw what the mountain did to his lake, it would have killed him anyway, Yep, he always said he wanted to die at Spirit Lake. He went the way he wanted to go.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah Good. Truman's niece, shirley, stated he used to say that's my mountain and my lake. And he would say those are my arms and my legs. And she also said if he would have seen it the way it is now, I don't think he would have survived. And his cousin, richard ice, commented that truman's short period as a celebrity was the peak of his life. Truman was the subject of the books truman of saint helens, the man and his mountain, written by his niece, and and the Legend of Harry Truman, written by his sister. He was portrayed by Art Carney, his favorite actor in the 1981 docudrama St Helens. Memorabilia was sold in the area surrounding Mount St Helens, including Harry Truman hats, pictures, posters and postcards. Because capitalism?
Speaker 1:rules, man, they didn't waste any time getting that docuseries out either.
Speaker 2:No, I know, I thought when I was like, I was like, really it was that fucking fast.
Speaker 1:Damn, that's like Netflix speed Right.
Speaker 2:A restaurant named after him was opened in Anchorage, alaska, serving themed dishes such as Harry's Hot Molten Chili. According to the Washington Star, more than 100 songs had been composed in Truman's honor by 1981. A hundred A hundred commemorative album entitled the Musical Legend of Harry Truman a very special collection of Mount St Helens volcanic songs, which seems like so long of a title of an album.
Speaker 2:It really is. Lulabelle Garland wrote the Legend of Harry and the Mountain, which was recorded in 1980 by Ron Shaw and the Desert Wind Band. Musicians Ron Allen and Stephen Asplen wrote a country rock song in 1980 called Harry Truman, your Spirit Still Lives On. One of the major characters from the first two seasons of the TV show Twin Peaks was named Sheriff Harry S Truman. In his honor, billy Jonas included Truman's narrative in his song Old St Helen in 1993, and he is the subject of the 2007 song Harry Truman, written and recorded by Irish band Headgear Interesting.
Speaker 1:Now you know the rest of the story.
Speaker 2:Truman Trail and Harry's Ridge in the Mount St Helens region were named after him. Mount St Helens region were named after him. The Harry R Truman Memorial Park was named in his honor in Castle Rock, Washington, though it later was named Castle Rock Lions Club Volunteer Park. St Helens is a 1981 May. Oh, so I didn't push that down. So, yeah, I think it's great that this Harry R Truman guy got like.
Speaker 2:I mean it's kind of sad that's 56 other people to not get this much recognition but I'm sure their name is on a plaque somewhere um, it sounds like he deserved it I think so it's just you gotta look.
Speaker 2:It's a great story. It is so the 1981, made for cable HBO television film, which I guess was the Netflix of the 1980s yes, directed by Ernest Pintoff and starred David Huffman, art Carney, cassie Yates and Albert Salmi. The film centers on the events leading up to the cataclysmic eruption, with the story beginning on the day volcanic activity started, on march 20th, and ending on the day of the eruption. The film premiered on may 18th 1981, on the first anniversary of the eruption. United states geological Survey volcanist David Jackson a fictionalized version of David A Johnson arrives to investigate the activity. Spoiler alert he dies.
Speaker 2:So what I remember? The main thing that sticks out from this I think we had HBO then maybe we were fancy and had hbo um, I remember them telling him he had to leave and he was trying the mostly what I remember, and I meant to find it so I could watch it and I didn't. Um, he's trying to get everybody to leave and they don't want to leave, which I think is what made me think that it was not just 57. Not that it's not just 57 people that died, but way bigger of an issue than it was. And I just remember like a cabin and he was in this cabin? I don't know, I meant to watch it again, but I didn't. Anyway, that's the summer, okay. So now it's all done. Bada boom, bada bang. Now we're going to go through. Since the eruption.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Summer of 1980. Small eruptive activity continues through October as geologists get the chance to study a major eruption firsthand. Used through october, as geologists get the chance to study a major eruption firsthand, a few visiting the volcano hot spot. Visiting from volcano hot spot, hawaii. Roast a pig on the pyro, let's take flow the scorching hot gas emissions.
Speaker 2:That's a very hawaiian thing to do. The annual barbecue tradition still continues. Among the usgs cascades volcano observatory. Scientists, albeit in someone's backyard. June to october 1980, um continuing eruptions destroy a lava dome inside the creator and a new dome forms. September of 1980, weyerhaeuser Company begins salvaging some of the 62,000 acres of timber and young plantation damaged by the blast. 1982, congress designates Mount St Helens as America's first national volcanic monument. I know that seems like A monument. Shouldn't Hawaii have the first? I'm saying they have a lot more. And they're all volcano, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, hawaii, screw you, I guess. 2004 to 2008. A four-year eruption series looks markedly different from its famous 1980 predecessor. Four-year eruption series looks markedly different from its famous 1980 predecessor, though less intense, intensely dramatic. These events included plumes of ash and lava extrusions that eventually build a dome a thousand feet high. I remember that. Do you remember that in the early aughts?
Speaker 1:remember early when I was like I don't think, so I put this out of order too, god damn it.
Speaker 2:So we're going to go back a bit. 1987, volcano Summit reopened to recreational climbing and the US Army Corps of Engineers builds a dam to hold back sediment carried downstream by the north face of the Tuttle River. In 1994, the reconstructed 52-mile-long Spirit Lake Memorial Highway opens to traffic, connecting Castle Rock to stunning viewpoints in the blast zone. September 23, 2004,. The mountain stirs with a flurry of earthquakes. October 2, 2004, sustained tremors inside the mountain indicate movement of magma. The Forest Service evacuates. Visitor from the Johnson Ridge Observatory. Wow. January 16th 2005. A 17-minute explosion eruption destroys instruments inside the creator. Creator. Creator. March 8th 2005.
Speaker 1:Hey that's my birthday. Yes, the mountains. You know, when I was writing that, I was like, hey, that's Nicole's birthday, oh, and, by the way, I did say when I drove past Cursor oh, it's still there. I did say when I drove past Cursor I was like, oh, there's where what used to be where Heather was born, that's the sad bones of where Heather was born that's what you use as a skeleton man.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised it didn't close the day after I was born no, it's closed. I know I'm saying. I sucked the soul straight out of it. When I was born no, it's closed. I know I'm saying I suck the soul when I was born they were like oh man, some kind of portal from hell opened up in this bitch. We better shut it down. I don't have a portal to hell yet march 8, 2005, nicole's birthday.
Speaker 2:The mountain sends ash and steam to an altitude of 3600 36 000 feet wowing spectators just before sunset that I remember that.
Speaker 2:I can't believe you don't remember it because it was on your birthday. I mean, if a volcano erupted on my birthday, I would be like, oh God, yeah, that's the portal to hell. I speak of Early 2008,. Dome building slows to a halt and seismic activity drops. July 13, 2008, scientists declare that the 2004 to 2008 eruption has ended. After building a new 125 million cubic yard lava dome 2020, mount St Helens has rebuilt about 7% of the mass it lost in the explosive 80 eruption. So fun facts, I know.
Speaker 1:I know you love them, I love them. It was really hard to find fun facts and this story has been fun facts the whole way through Fun fact.
Speaker 2:I'm going to name it fun fact. I'm going to have to start calling. You know, when I was doing it I was like I should start calling it. Not so fun facts. When it's a disaster, although these are anyway. The volcanic ash cloud drifted east across the United States in three days and encircled Earth in 15 days. Get out. You would think we would remember that, because we get the goddamn smoke from New Jersey all the time and the smoke from Canada all the time.
Speaker 1:You would think so, would people have seen it as it passed?
Speaker 2:Would they have been like oh, there it goes. No, I think it would have just no Okay.
Speaker 1:I think it as it passed.
Speaker 2:Would they have been like oh, there it goes. No, I think it would have, just no, okay, I think it's probably way up there. Yeah, it's just, I don't, I mean I don't know, I don't remember that's a little. Um so la hares, volcanic mud flows filled rivers with rock, sand and mud, damaging 27 bridges and 200 homes and forcing 31 ships to remain in port upstream.
Speaker 2:Wow, permanently, permanently, I cut them off oh, wow um it is was the most economically destructive volcanic event in us history. Small plants and trees, beneath winter snow and roots protected by soil, survived the eruption and now thrive. Thousands of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and millions of hatchering fingerlings perished in the eruption. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's going to happen. That's a not so fun fact. That's a not so fun fact. That's a not so fun fact. In late May, wind dispersed, spiders and scavenging beetles were among the first animals to return to the Mount St Helens area.
Speaker 2:Of course, which is what is like the most crazy thing, like okay, we know I don't believe in God, right, whatever you want to believe in with the mother nature. I don't know how much of it, but goddamn wind was blowing spiders and scavenging beetles to the area. It's just like insane. How like there I don't remember what plant it is, it's some plant that grows in, like forest, fiery areas. The only way it reproduces is by fire. Yeah, like the pod has to be lit on fire for it to pop to make more. So it's like earth is crazy. Right, it's just insane. Yeah, so the wind blows in spiders and beetles and then, boom, life begins again. It's just it's. I don't know. That's that part Like.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you don't believe in any of that, that's the one where you're just like. I mean, obviously somebody knows what they're doing here. Yes, for that crazy. Yeah, yeah. The landscape devastated by the eruption has evolved into a rich and diverse habitat for plants and animals.
Speaker 2:Effects of the eruption continue. Today, biologists help wild salmon and steelhead by giving them a tank truck ride to the pristine clear creeks above sediment choked rivers. I know Now I need to go at whenever salmon run. Yeah, I guess that's that's not so much like, but they would have found a way without see here's what's what. So would they have found a way around on their own, or did mother nature make people to do it as their way wearing very interesting.
Speaker 2:She's probably like that was a failed experiment they're burning more gas than they're saving anything in their tanker trucks. These poor fish have no idea what is happening. I feel like they got abducted by aliens. Since 1986, snow and rock accumulating in the deep shaded crater formed Crater Glacier, the youngest glacier on Earth. October 2004 to January 2008,. Growing lava domes displaced and then divided Crater into east and west lobes. The ice lobes moved downslope as fast as six feet per day, converging below the lava dome a little more than three years later, during the 2004 to 2008 eruptions, mount st helens settled one half inch due to magma withdrawing beneath the volcano. The Global Positioning System GPS instrument that detected the settling of Mount St Helens can detect movement of as little as one sixteenth of an inch and uses less power than a refrigerator light bulb.
Speaker 1:I was thinking that it's nuts that they have an instrument like where are you even measuring from to say it was half an inch? Like where is the bottom right? I?
Speaker 2:don't know, but but so that gps can tell if it's 1 16th of an inch. Meanwhile, google maps can't figure out that there's not a street that I can't drive through and off the side of the bridge, which is what it wanted me to do for the longest time. Anytime I went over the bay bridge, just in the middle of it would be like turn left and I'm like like no, that's maybe. Maybe it was just reading my, my, uh, because that's my issue with bridges.
Speaker 1:Like I feel, like I'm just gonna jump off one, or it was that portal to hell you were talking about. That's where it was thing though.
Speaker 2:Um, oh, what do they call it? It's called the call of the void, and people actually have. It is an actual thing, because I looked it up or I saw it somewhere, and then I was like hold on, wait, like I have an overwhelming urge. I had it just the other day. Normally I don't have it on the Indian River Bridge, but the other day I was like like my intrusive thoughts trying to take over, and I was like oh my God, I'm going to drive off the side of this bridge.
Speaker 2:I got off the side of this bridge, I got into the left lane, so that that didn't happen. Plus, I don't think I would make it over the side, but right either way, I got dizzy, think like it's like a whole thing comes over me and I get like my tunnel vision and it's just like just go over the side. And it's not depression or anything, it's not like suicidal, it's called the call of the call of the void I I have like that is.
Speaker 1:My fear is that, for whatever reason, I'm going to drive off the side of the bridge you're just gonna yeah and it's gonna be like a tick, like we're like my arm jerks and that's called normal people don't have that I don't know that yeah, that's not an everybody thing that's so funny. Before I got put on lexapro and I was telling my doctor all my intrusive thoughts, she literally said that to me.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, normal people don't think like that right like when I told her that I feel like every single car driving in the other lane but towards me is gonna, I'm gonna be in a head-on collision like every one of them. That's when she was like you know, normal people don't think that, right, not a normal thing. I'm like no, I didn't know that. Thanks, are you sure? But yeah, I had speaking of horrible bridges, though I had to drive that philly bridge yesterday. The double decker that one.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like I'm going to drive off of it, but I just know that top's coming down yeah yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's. The scary part is being on that bottom one, because the top one is so high that even you can't see over. So it's you can. You can convince yourself, you're just on a road, it's plus it's like what? Three lanes, four lanes, yes so you can just act like you're on a highway yeah but then somewhere once I don't know if it's right at the peak, but they put that very little bit of bridge over top of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like why? Because now?
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm on a bridge, like I was okay until that. That's right.
Speaker 2:I know there are shows, there are services, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge it is a well-known fact that people are petrified of that bridge it's the curve for me a it's too high, it's just. Why is it so high? Because, boats under it. Why don't you build a tunnel? Anyway it is, it's like it's three miles long.
Speaker 1:Bridges should not be, I mean I get and literally the railing is like knee high, like it's not holding anything going west is the worst, coming back to eat.
Speaker 2:Coming back east isn't as bad because well and then when they, when you're going over and it's busy coming back the other way, and you got two lanes going one way and the one lane coming the other way and you're like this is just gonna I, this is terrible, that is awful like, because you're definitely going over yes, like it's so scary, and it really is.
Speaker 1:And and I almost wonder, like, is that intentional? Because cars go, especially tractor trailers go over the side of this more often than they should yeah and is it because they don't want to have to deal with like closing it down and getting cars off? So just go ahead and go off the side, like gravity working about it. We can just sweep a little bit and keep people moving.
Speaker 2:Nothing to see here, but coming back is not as bad. I can deal with it coming back.
Speaker 1:The walls are higher yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's only two lanes and it's not as high.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's only two lanes and it's not as high. Yeah, yeah, it's much better. Yeah, if you ever travel to the East Coast and you need to go from the Eastern Shore of Maryland over to don't, don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have a. They literally, you can literally pay someone to drive you. Yeah, I have not done that but I've, and they should have a ferry terminal there. It should be an option. Well, that's the problem.
Speaker 1:They used to have a ferry and I guess it wasn't. I don't know why they got rid of the ferry, but I would definitely take a ferry. Oh yeah, I would 100.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, just count in an extra hour for your trip, yeah, and then every time you see a boat there, and now with after the the bridge collapse. We went over. What bridge did I go over that? There was, oh you know what other bridge I don't like the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. I will not go in that tunnel. If there's a boat coming, I'll just wait. I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1:My mom is terrified of tunnels and we took that bridge down when we went to Virginia Beach in March and yeah, it's a little unnerving, like you just can't think about it. But then you think about movies where you've seen movies where boats hit the side of a tunnel. My father is the reason.
Speaker 2:I am. I know this is going to come as a huge surprise. But my father is the reason I hate that Every time. So we would have to take it every time to go to Florida. Every fucking time we would go through it, and when we were older we would leave to go to disney and florida and stuff we would leave at like nine o'clock at night.
Speaker 2:It only takes two hours to get right to the tunnel so we'd still be awake because I guess they didn't drug us enough. And um, the whole fucking time in the tunnel he'd be like, you see that water dripping, is that water? Is that a crack? And I'd be like, just get us out. And it's. It's just two lanes in there and it's oh god, I will not go over it. If there's a boat, I'll wait, I'll pull over, fuck that shit. And if it's storming and the waves, wait, it crashes right up onto it. Have you ever been in it when it's?
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever been on that bridge in a storm.
Speaker 2:I feel like anytime I've ever gone, it's always sunny I've been in it one time where we were one of the last groups over my shut it down behind them and the water. It's not so much. The water is not coming, but I guess the wind is blowing it up, and so it's like spraying your car the whole oh my god.
Speaker 1:It is super cool, though, when you're on the bridge and you look out and then there's bridge, and then there's no bridge, and then there's bridge again.
Speaker 2:It's not a terrible bridge because it's short it's not very tall bridge because it's short, it's not very tall.
Speaker 2:Correct and it has proper sides and it has proper sides and it's not tall, it just has tunnels. It just has tunnels and it's very long. It's 14 miles. Yeah, so you're on it forever Ever, yeah, okay, not Okay, not so much. We're going back to the West Coast here. No-transcript. Mount St Helens remains a world-famous natural laboratory for the study of Earth's processes and also nature's response to catastrophe. Mount St Helens and its neighbor, mount Adams are known as brother and sister mountains. The two volcanoes are 34 miles apart. Before the 80 eruption, mount st helens had 11 named glaciers lewitt, wishbone, leshy, forsyth, ape, shoestring, ape, shoestring, nelson, tuttle, talus, swift and dryer.
Speaker 1:After the eruption, only shoestring partially survived I thought you were gonna say ape shit, shit.
Speaker 2:I thought I was going to too. I didn't.
Speaker 1:Got it out. Without it, that would be an awesome volcano name though.
Speaker 2:When Mount St Helens erupted, the resulting lava, ash and debris turned the landscape barren for miles around. It was clear the land would take a long time to recover from the eruption. Here's my favorite fun fact I know. I didn't know we had more fun facts. I told her I wasn't going to keep one.
Speaker 1:I had a really good one I was saving it.
Speaker 2:I refused to tell her what it was. Yes, one team of scientists had an idea about how they could help speed up the process Sending a few gophers there on a day trip. Help speed up the process Sending a few gophers there on a day trip on a destroyed landscape, scientists wondered how life could be restored, so they brought in gophers to dig around in specific areas for one single day. Now, more than four decades later, the benefits from those 24 hours remain visible. Allen and others published a paper in early November in Frontiers in Microbiomes suggesting the gophers played a key role in restoring fungi and bacteria in the soil, and the health of the gopher-inhabited areas stood in stark contrast to areas where the gophers had never been. In 1983, when Allen and other scientists flew in by helicopter to an area devastated by lava, they found only about a dozen plants surviving there. Even the seeds that birds had dropped in the area were struggling to grow. In the experiment, they airlifted local gophers, known as northern pocket go gophers, to two enclosed pumice plots for just one day. The scientists only plan to test short term chain reaction of the stocky rodents activities. Oh, I put the should put this first because this is Michael Allen. I'm an idiot. This is the guy he would have. Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see residual effects?
Speaker 2:40 years later, plant life struggled to return to the area around Mount St Helens, now under a layer of pumice fragments. While the top layers of soil were destroyed by the eruption in lava flow, the soil underneath could still be rich in bacteria and fungi. Bringing them there was like bringing a mini ecosystem just for a short time. The eruption in lava flow, the soil underneath could still be rich in bacteria and fungi. Bringing them there was like bringing a mini ecosystem just for a short time, said a soil microbiologist from University of Connecticut. The scientists hoped the gophers would help restore the ecosystem with their natural digging activities and defecation, which would fertilize and aerate the soil and bring in microorganisms like the bacteria. And that is so cool. Microorganisms regulate nutrient cycling, interact with many other organisms and therefore may support successful pathways and complementary ecosystem functions, even in harsh conditions.
Speaker 1:That is really, really cool.
Speaker 2:They were like big hairy earthworms With the exception of a few weeds, there is no way most plant roots are efficient enough to get all of the nutrients and water they need by themselves. The fungi transport these things to the plant and get the carbon they need for their own growth in exchange. Six years after the gophers were brought in, the land they hadn't touched remained largely barren, while four thousand plant four hundred forty thousand plants grew and thrived in the gopher plots, according to the statement. What that is the ultimate fun fact that is one day just mind-blowing.
Speaker 2:The gophers were there one day that and they, they, you know 40 40 years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just needed to break through that surface just one day go Gophers who knew?
Speaker 2:So that's all I had, that's it. That's my Mount, st Helens.
Speaker 1:That was just amazing, thanks, yeah, I love learning those things that I would never even it's. You know the you don't know what you don't know things, yeah. So when that comes up, it all makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:When you say it, I know, because they turned over the land and brought all that yeah that's crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:Gophers Cute little gophers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so that's it. You can well first thanks for listening, because I have the script and she does not.
Speaker 2:Not, she didn't do her part at the top. I didn't even though she doesn't have the script. That doesn't have it on there, correct? So thanks for listening. You can like share rate review please, and thank you. Find us where you listen to podcasts and there's a little like share rate reveal little button on all of those things. So thumbs up it. Please. Follow us on all the socials at like whatever pod. Go to those, follow it, and then you can just an email about why gophers are awesome to likewhateverpod at gmailcom or don't like whatever.
Speaker 1:Whatever, bye.
