Astoria, Oregon

9/5/2010

I will keep trying to stay up to date on recording what we are up to, but still no photos will be added until we get back home!

Today we drove to Astoria. Before I get to that though, I have had a few more thoughts about our experience on Spirit of ’98 after a night at the Convention Center Red Lion Inn. There is a lot to be said for a full tub-sized shower! But, I don’t know about me. Downtown Portland and the huge and comfortable bed at the Red Lion Inn just pitched and swirled most of the night. Since I can now get motion sickness anytime and anywhere and without anything actually moving, I don’t know what that says about our future and cruising. On the one hand, it seems that it should no longer matter how rough a cruise is because I can no longer judge movement anyway. On the other hand, seems better maybe to just always try to stay as still as possible so I can better judge. I just don’t know. Time will tell I suppose. I forgot to mention a detail about the Spirit of ’98. I think the word is cambered. The floors are not level, they curve to follow the lines of the ship’s keel ( I think that is the word.). So, for me even when the boat was tied up I felt queasy and was looking for something to lean against to make myself think I was upright and even and still. Just a detail I thought I should add as I don’t remember reading about it before. But it was especially evident in the front of the boat on the lower level and in the lounge on the second level. I guess it is possible that the floors made their way to level on some higher decks, but I didn’t study it. I know that the center area of the Sun Deck seemed perfectly level.

So, we had Voodoo Doughnuts for breakfast. Yummy. We checked out of Red Lion Inn and they did not charge us $12 they said they would for parking. That was a nice surprise. Then we headed out and had the usual hassle with driving in circles and nearly wrecking while we waited for Clay to report that the GPS had figured out where we were. Here’s the thing, that GPS doesn’t know about all the one-way and closed streets or the streetcars or traffic and it doesn’t read road signs. You shouldn’t have to drive in a circle to enter I5 North. Now maybe Clay and I weren't clear on this, but it was his big goal to take a road trip without driving on Interstates. This whole thing of me driving and Clay navigating is new, but let me tell you he sucks at it. He either can’t and/or won’t read a map, he treats that danged GPS like the voice of God, if he were a believer. He doesn’t read road signs, or even look out the window. He just stares at the GPS and tells me what he sees as Bossy Man (the GPS voice) tells me what to do. Neither of them listening at all as I don’t follow directions because they are impossible and I am trying not to have a car wreck or get arrested and lose my license for reckless endangerment! I don’t see how this will be resolved. If we both knew we did not want to drive I5 to Astoria, but Bossy Man isn’t in on the plan; we shouldn’t listen to him. In a fraction of the time, we could have glanced at a paper map and been out of town and on our way. Instead we wasted time and had the bejeezus scared out of us. End of rant, for now.

Rainier, bridge & where we last docked

So, we drove North on I5 into Washington and drove 50 miles there. When Bossy Man sent us back down into Oregon, it happened to be at Rainier! So we got to drive over the scary bridge of our last full day aboard and see the double-sided Oregon state flag again. Not sure if I reported that here earlier, but it is a good piece of trivia. Oregon has the only state flag with different images on each side. There is a state logo of some kind on one side, on the other side is sewn a patch of fabric with a beaver printed on it.

Bradley overlook of Columbia River

The small highway 30 that we drove the rest of the way to Astoria ran more or less along the Columbia River in Oregon. It was interesting with lots of viewpoints and Lewis & Clark signs. We did all of the viewpoints. The Lewis & Clark site sign was a bust, it also had an Eagle Sanctuary sign, and we were jazzed but after we drove down the road as directed there were forks in the road with no more signs and we never located either thing to the best of our knowledge; so we turned around and went back the way we came. We stopped at a little park called Bradley on a high bluff that had great views of the Columbia, a Weyerhaeuser Plant and had nice picnic areas and bathrooms. It was a little surprise.

It really is a BIG car! At Bradley State Park overlook.

Gnat Creek Salmon Hatchery

We stopped at the Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery and met a man who lived in Fayetteville, NC and has a daughter in Raeford, NC. He and his wife live in a big camper there at the fishery for free while he volunteers there. How cool is that? The fish hatchery was cool. They have a pair of sturgeon there about 5 feet. He said we really missed out by not visiting the fish hatchery at Bonneville Dam. Oh well, you can only do what you can do. We paid a quarter and fed some huge rainbow trout and smaller steelheads. We saw all the fingerling sized salmon as they were graduating their way through ponds to finally be released. I asked him about what I thought was a fisheries employee taking 6 to10 inch fish away from fishermen coming in at Rainier the other day and cutting the adipose fin off into a bucket and putting the fish in a cooler. He had never heard of a fish the size I described or what was going on, but she had a fisheries sign outside the van where she was working with a lineup of fishermen with buckets of fish for her. He went to ask an employee there and came back and said it was a reward/bounty program to eradicate an invasive Pike that is not indigenous. He said I should have seen money changing hands but I didn’t, though it doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. He said they pay the fishermen $3 for each and keep up by counting the fins collected. They would keep the whole dead fish to destroy since it is not considering good eating. Then we walked up and back a trail to see a little waterfall and the trail was completely surrounded by laden Huckleberry bushes!
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/visitors/gnat_creek_hatchery.asp



Eerie forest trail at Gnat Creek Hatchery



Gnat Creek Barrier Falls

  

Huckleberries!



crossing scary wooden pier to Rogue Ales Pub House- Astoria

 We drove about another 30 minutes to arrive in Astoria. The first thing we saw was a sign for Rogue Ales Public House at Pier 39. I pulled right in since it was near noon. We had to drive over the Astoria Trolley tracks near one of their stops and then over a long rickety wooden pier. It was even scarier than driving over that old tall bridge. I kind of freaked out in the middle because I could hear something wrong. I stopped and opened the window and a pickup truck nearly rear-ended me! Guess what? It was a colony of sea lions barking!





Astoria Trolley - end of the line



lunch view of Astoria and sea lions

Bob with Clay's tasting flight

Anyway, we had a really good lunch and Clay got the treat of a tasting flight of beers. I think he took notes so maybe one day he will add his report and findings here. We walked around to see the marina and sea lions and big ocean cargo ships anchored around. Then we went through the old cannery building and looked at the defunct Bumble Bee cannery museum and some boats and a crab tank. It was all very cool and interesting.

Bob at Cannery Museum

Clay at The Goonies!

Then we went directly to the Goonies House. This is where Mikey lived in the movie, The Goonies.
Clay loves that movie. He was thrilled to see several places from the film, especially the Goonies area! It was amazing the number of people pulling up there in a solid and constant stream while we were there! They made a movie, The Portrait, in our neighborhood once with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall in the 1990’s, that was released directly to TNT or something like that and I have never seen any one come looking for filming location sites!

Mikey's house from The Goonies




Lightship at the Columbia River Maritime Museum

 
Then we drove on to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. The mouth of the Columbia River is called The Bar and it is one of the most treacherous places in the world to sail. It was a really impressive museum. Not too sure I ever want to arrive here by cruise ship now! Seeing the Astoria Bridge from the river side the other night was enough for me! The land view from Astoria is great too.
 

Astoria Column

Then we went up to the Astoria Column. We made the mistake of climbing the 167 steps! There is one circular stairway and it is not quite wide enough to be 2-way but it was. Nerve-wracking! As expected the views from the top were impressive. The column itself is very impressive as well and the artwork is amazing.


view from the top of Astoria Column



view from atop Astoria Column



view from atop Astoria Column



rear view of Grandview Inn- our room is 1 down on right turret

We got back in the car and wound our way back down to about the halfway point of Astoria on the hill and to our resting place tonight, The Grandview Inn. It is certainly aptly named. It has a grand view. Our room, Gazebo, is on the second floor facing the river and has a turret sitting room, where I am typing as the sun rises and I have a 180+ degree view from the bridge down the river towards Portland, though the river bends and you can only see a few miles at best. Still it is amazing to just watch the big ships come slowly sailing inland.





Where Mikey's Dad was curator in The Goonies

We went downtown last night and had a good dinner at the Silver Salmon Grille. Then we went by 2 more Goonies sites, the Flavel House Museum where Mikey’s dad was curator and the County Jail where the Fratellis escaped! Go watch the movie! As we were up there a block-long tanker sailed past town towards the sea and at first it looked like half the skyline was shifting. The tanker was so huge we couldn’t believe our eyes at first. This has been a cool place to visit with all the old Victorian houses lining the hill over the Columbia River at its mouth, but we could never live here. The hills are killing us!





Clay re-enacting the Fratellis escape!

Gotta go. More later. Time for our breakfast at the Grandview B&B. Oh, great water pressure here too.

Breakfast nook, 1 floor below our room