2019 - Fruit...the bane of Mr. A's border crossing experience

Year 14 saw 47 students join Mr. A., Mr. Young, Ms. Petrie and (tagging along in his final year, a return of fan favourite) Mr. Bourget. We eliminated the MoPop simply because there wasn't time in any of our days without rushing savagely to get to the museum. That seemed liberating for our drive down and we thought we'd escape the Seattle crawl on the highway. Someone had the bright idea to take I-405 rather than the I-5...turns out it didn't make a difference; both were painfully slow. The reason we were somewhat delayed (and therefore hit rush hour traffic) is that our group was somewhat confused about what a fruit is. You see fresh fruit and vegetables are a no no across the border and we told our group they weren't allowed to bring fresh fruit with them. While on the bus from the ferry to the border, after a few "is an orange okay?" and "what about bananas?" questions...Mr A proceeded to go bananas and explain in very precise detail what a fruit is, along with a list of some fruit. Needless to say the delay at the border meant rush hour traffic in Seattle...sigh.

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing with good weather, good views, good times, good music but a less than good baseball game (no bobbleheads and an 18-4 final score for the Twins over the M's). It was, however, a sincere pleasure to have Mr. Bourget rejoin the trip in his last semester of teaching. This trip simply wouldn't have happened without his energy and passion for Earth Science. Thanks Bourget, you're a rock star!

Pretty much a full bus and by the way did we mention that apples are fruit?

Yes oranges are fruit too

Bananas are fruit too

Oh and grapes are fruit too

Just across the border Bourget reminds Arsenault that there is no more fresh fruit on the bus

The 405 was much like every year...a parking lot. Maybe we should go back to the 101 and take the Black Ball to Port Angeles

After an overnight in Olympia the group made our way to the Ape Caves on the south side of the mountain

All smiles...ready to get into the caves

As is standard operating procedure we did our first group shot outside the Ape Caves HQ

And the chaperons got in on the act

And act they did

It is always amazing to enter the caves; there is a nervous anticipation among the students of what is down there. This is always an exciting time for the chaperons

It's surprising to many just how big the lava tubes are

And as usual, the students enjoyed exploring the end of the lower caves

And exiting is just as fun as entering as the light opens up to the world above

We then made our way to the trail of Two Forests to see the lava casts of trees and not get lost on the crawl like Riley did last year

Caving is hard work and you build up an appetite, so Friday night back in Kelso the teachers did their typical Fiesta Bonita food fest

And Saturday saw really good weather for the north side and the Johnson Ridge Observatory. It was the 39th anniversary of the 1980 eruption so there were many exhibits and free USGS swag (needless to say the chaperons loaded up on the resources). As is typical the cloud deck was low and then progressively lifted as the time went on through the early afternoon