When Mount St Helens erupted, we had just moved back from Utah. We watched as it blew. One man named Harry Truman (not THE one--)lived at the base of the mountain by a lake and he refused to go. He's there forever now.

The ash was terrible, even this far away. We had to wear masks when we went outside, and the cars and all were totally covered with a quarter of an inch to a half inch of super fine gray-yellow ash. It really messed up the air for folks with breath problems.

We have a line of volcanic mountains running from Canada to Southern California...and some of them, like Lassen, are active.