Sept. 20, 2010

Having spent the night in Astoria, Or, very near Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-06, we awoke to conditions just like they described ... rain and fog!  Thinking it might clear if we waited a bit, we went for a swim (Beth) and ran (Jim on a treadmill).  We ate breakfast, showered, and the rain was still coming down.  So we set off!

In the elevator, we met a couple who said they'd been bothered all night by the "orking" of the sea lions on the dock outside the motel.  They had had a riverside view!  They explained where the sea lions were and we were on our way.  I had my umbrella, rain jacket, and nylon pants, but the wind and rain were intense.  By the time I got back into the car, my pants were totally wet ... so wet I could see the color of my skin through them.  BUT we saw the amazing beasts orking away, many, many of them sitting on the dock or slithering into the Columbia or popping their heads up through the water.  This was very cool!

Look on the foreground dock to see just a few of the sea lions!

We'd been told by a few folks that the Astoria Column is a must see, especially on a clear day, so even through it wasn't clear, we went.  The view from there would be terrific on a sunny day because it is very high (the literature of Astoria calls it the San Francisco of Oregon), but what you see below is about all we could see.  Jim climbed the stairs; I wrote some notes!

Astoria Tower

The tower was built to memorialize John Jacob Aster who in 1811 established a fur trading town there.  Many Scandinavians live around the mouth of the Columbia apparently.  A man from Ilwaco told us that many Fins live there.  Astoria didn't claim only Fins, but all Scandinavians.

From the column we headed to Fort Clatsop.  A replica of the fort has been build there and they have a great interpretive center ... lots of Clatsop and Chinook Indian artifacts and information.  To me the fort itself seemed very finished, but the rangers thought the men actually would have been fast enough and good enough at building that they would have been able to finish the fort nicely as well.  Outside we recognized Sacajawea, too.

Jim and Sacajawea having a chat.

Private's quarters

 William R. Clark ... I like this quote!

We headed for Seaside after leaving the fort.  Seaside is where L & C went to barter for whale blubber once when they heard a whale had beached there.  Also, we saw where and how they made salt out of sea water at Seaside.  Essentially, they boiled sea water until the water evaporated and only salt was left.  Believe it or not, 3 men camped there from January until February and boiled water, and they made 4 bushels of salt!  Having run out on the journey west, the Corps had to have salt to preserve meat for the trip home.  At Seaside was yet another statue to L & C, a very impressive one at that!

If you enlarge this, you'll see some of the detail around the bottom.

Seaside behind us, we started for Portland.  We planned to stop at a park along the way and have a little picnic.  Surprise of all surprises, we happened upon Kloochey State Park, right off of highway 26, and we found there the remnants of the First Heritage Tree, a Sitka Spruce of magnificent size before it was snapped by a hurricane in 2007.  Look for Jim standing near the base of the trunk!

Jim's size helps with perspective. 

We stopped later in the afternoon for cobbler at a restaurant along the way and the waitress there told us a sapling is growing out of the roots of this tree, so it still has life in its old trunk!  Another very unusual and very large tree was in the same park.  Look for Jim in the following picture, too.

Do you see him between the two trunks?

Arrival in Portland was around 5:00, just in time to settle in for a walk along the river, dinner, and a quiet evening with this blog!