I Have Been to the Mountain Top!!!

Now, how in the hell do I get down!!!!!!

Jarl had been to mountain tops in both the Rockies and the Smokies. How hard could it be to get to the top of the mountain on an island? The summit is only 20 miles from the ocean. The answer is damn hard. These people built a road up a goat path. It climbs 10,000 feet in 30 miles. Instead of winding around the mountain, like they do in the Rockies and the Smokies, this road goes practically straight up the side of the mountain. The whole trip up you wonder if the car is going to tip over backwards. To be honest it does not go straight up. It winds back and forth on a line that goes straight up the mountain. When going around one corner, Jarl thought he was thinking, "Oh my God!". Apparently he had said it out loud, because Jarlina said, "Why are you going 'Oh my God!'. I'm the one on the outside." They finally made it to the summit, only to see that it was socked in with clouds. So they decided to climb even higher on foot to see if they could see anything. It was OK, until they turned the corner. Being good Midwesterners, they had their parkas on, the sleeves and waists were pulled tight, but it was warm enough to leave the hood slightly open. Big mistake. Once around the corner the wind went in their hoods and filled up the back of their parkas like a giant parasail. Thank good for those donuts every Saturday morning at Byerlys. Had it not been for those extra 20 pounds they both would have shot off the mountain like two loons shot out of a cannon. Jarlina, being the lighter of the two, said, "That's it! We're going back. I am not getting blown off this mountain." Jarl did not argue.

Once back to the visitor station, Jarlina visited the restroom while Jarl tried to catch his breath. Jarl was just sitting there staring into the cloud when it just disappeared. There was the giant crater below. One quick look at the map and he realized that this was the mouth of the volcano that had birthed this island. As you can see, it is an almost lunar landscape. It is so majestic to realize that the island would not be here if this volcano had not spewed forth the lava that created the island. The valley below goes twenty miles straight into the Pacific Ocean. Jarl snapped a few pictures, and then looked to see where Jarlina was. She was just coming down the hill, and got to see the same majestic view of the crater. They watched in awe for about 10 minutes, and then the cloud moved in again and the view was gone.

Emboldened by the spectaculor view of the crater, Jarl and Jarlina strapped themselves into the rental car for the decent. Once Jarl figured out how to put the car in low gear, the trip did not seem so bad. With each mile Jarl became more confident. Jarlina even had to tell him to slow down. All the way down they were looking down at the rainbows in the clouds below. In about 3o minutes they were back at sea level. Jarlina pointed out the recent for the National Park was good for three days, so they could go back up on Thursday. If looks could kill, ...