Put a Bird on it

-
On May 18th 1980, Mt. St. Helen's erupted in a spectacular show of mother nature's power.  A 5.1 magnitude earthquake sent the north face of the mountain flying.  The initial blast burned the landscape 14 miles away.  From there, a hot, turbulent flow of mud and debris traveled down the mountain at 300 miles and hour, destroying everything in its path.  (please read that in a dramatic, movie trailer narrator type of voice.)

It's pretty scary to think about, but also one of most fascinating places I've been.  Sadly, we did not see the mountain itself due to clouds, (even though it is 1300 feet smaller than it was on May 17th 1980).

After coasting back toward sea level, we visited Multnomah Falls 30 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon.  These falls are literally yards from the highway and a popular destination for travelers.  At 582 feet, they are the second tallest year round falls in the United States.   It's a little over a mile to see the top of the falls, which weeds out a lot of the tourists.  11 switchbacks yields a great view of the Columbia River Gorge as well as the highway. 

Two years ago, I didn't know anything about Portland, Oregon.  But thanks to Portlandia, a wacky and funny sketch show, I know more about that town than almost any other.   I think that I really wanted to go to Portland just to shout some of the classic lines from the show on the street.  Let's just say we said 'put a bird on it' 'bike right!' and 'whose dog is this?!' quite a bit.  (Really we said 'Whose dog/parkbench/baby/bag is this!?' as much as it could possibly be applied for the entire trip).

Outside of that, in Portland we ate great food, fancy donuts, and drank a few craft beers.  We also visited the National Museum of Forestry which is peppered with great interactive exhibits including a dry run of whitewater rafting, a way to practice logging with a huge tractor, and to perfect jumping into a wildfire as a wild land firefighter.  Once all of the school children on field trips went to lunch, we all had a good time playing.

From there we headed West until we couldn't head west anymore.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dueling Blogs

-
I have the immense privilege to be sitting right across from Maddog Medic in the flesh. We aren't speaking, though he is listening to me. Want to solve this riddle? He is transcribing an interview he did with me for his blog at this very moment. And I too am blogging at this very moment! How crazy?! I am stationed this week at the EMS today conference to stock up on professional wheelings and dealings and learn some stuff. This is a wonderful conference full of networking and new products and I learned already that one dose of glucagon costs $130. That's out of control! I cannot wait to catch up on disaster literature and EMS tricks of the trade and get as many free pens as I can at the expo tomorrow.  As for now, I'm headed to a class on smart stuff and pediatric breathing problems.  I am surrounded by EMS nerds and I love it! I spent the day learning about things above my pay grade such as how to read a chest x-ray and how to differentiate between subarachnoi...
Click for More

Clothing Removal

-
Image
Last week I had a patient who fell from her horse while jumping at a show. When I got there the BLS crew had immobilized her and, well, that was about it. She was complaining of neck pain and at that moment couldn't remember what had happened. I used my horsey knowledge to build up a healthy rapport with a scared patient. In general, not a lot was wrong with her. My biggest problem was that she was on the backboard and still had on all of her fancy English riding clothes. I made my best efforts to get off her button up shirt with high collar and black outer riding jacket, but it caused her pain, and then I made it worse. Worse than falling off your horse, worse than the public embarrasment of having an ambulance called for you, worse than defenitly losing your show class, was the stupid paramedic who cut off your expensive riding clothes. I, too, had never felt worse for cutting someones clothes off. She cried and shrieked and you would have thought I was punching her in the gut. I...
Click for More

The Race

-
Sometimes this job is like a race. Like you're carrying this person on your back, and it's a messy race. You're tripping and sweating and you almost drop them. It's bouncy and there's trash everywhere. And if you can just get them over that line. To the line and throw them over. Throw them over and into the ER, you're obligation is fulfilled. Your job is done. You've won the race. And for a long time, that was it. Mission accomplished and I wasn't responsible for anything else. I didn't care about anything else. Get them to the hospital.  Dust my hands off and pat myself on the back. But somehow, they crept in. What did happen?  Did they live?  For the first time I asked myself.  I began to bring them home. I put them on a shelf and they stared down at me. They said, did you run fast enough?  Did you fall?  Did you drop me?  You threw me onto this island- over your line, but was it salvation?  I left in a hel...
Click for More