I was on the East coast but my older brother was living in Yakima and traveling that day around the state of Washington. He saw the ash cloud
approaching and described it as looking like the end of the world. A black cloud was spreading across the sky and it looked like black fingers
swirling down from the sky above. He kept taking detours I heard to try to get to his destination. I visited him a few months or so later and there
was still about a foot of ash in front of his house. We shoveled it like it was so much heavy wet snow.
I experienced the ash myself. When dry it's like a fine powder that blows into everything (the house, air filters, etc. etc.). When the ash is wet
its like a very thick oozing mud. When I was hiking on Mt. Rainier, my brother told me we couldn't eat the snow because the ash would make us sick.
I was up high enough on Mt. Rainier to see Mt. St. Helens venting some steam and ash the day before its second major eruption. I figure I was up
around 10,000 ft, I think I saw a sign that indicated the summit was around 4000 ft away. My brothers and I were the only ones walking the glaciers
of Mt. Rainier in tennis shoes and short sleeve shirts up at that level.
The next day we were talking about seeing how close to the summit of Mt. St. Helens we could get. Someone had already made reservations to go visit
something in a different part of the state though. Mt. St. Helens had its second major eruption that day but it was nothing compared to the first.
Simply a light dusting of ash that cleared up within a day. The first eruption brought days of darkness to the affected area. Airplanes and cars had
difficulty with air filters clogging up. I don't know how difficult it was to breathe with all of the ash in the air.
I figure not too many people remember that nowadays unless they were affected somehow.
. 
