As planned, we did end up going to Astoria on Friday and enjoyed a wonderful day of sunshine and exploration. We stopped in at Fort Stevens State Park and got to see the wreckage of the “Peter Iredale” which was driven aground during rough seas in 1906. It’s remains have been on the beach for over 100 years and during low tide, you can actually climb on what is left of the hull.


We had hoped to go to stop at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and see view where their exploration party finally reached the Pacific Ocean. Yes, your memory does serve you well if you recall that we went to a Lewis and Clark Museum earlier in our trip. What can we say, we just have a Jones for Lewis and Clark. Alas, the Interpretive Center here at Cape Disappointment is at least partially federally funded and therefore, NOT open at this time. Don’t even get me started about THAT.
We did drive through Seaside on the way to Astoria and thought of Bonnie and Jacki. They will have to tell you all their improbable story of their stay in Seaside sometime.
In Astoria, we had lunch at a quirky, little café and then poked into a few shops downtown. Since it was a clear day, we decided to head up to the Astoria Column.

rom the top, you can see the Columbia River, Mt. Saint Helens, Mt. Rainier and Canada.


It is 164 steps to the top on an enclosed spiral staircase. They sell those little balsam gliders in the gift shop for $1 and then you take them to the top and launch them. Mine was headed down to Kim before veering to the left and into the woods despite the fervent urging of all of us at the top.


We headed back into town and wanted to go the Maritime Museum. Sadly, we got there less than an hour before closing so we took a pass. The trolley was advertised as “must do” in our tour book so we asked and were told to head out to the River Walk. “Be sure to wave a dollar if you want them to stop and pick you up. If you just wave, they will smile, ring the trolley bell and wave back.” We enjoyed a fabulous ride with Bob and Lisa who were our trolley hosts. They are in their 70s and could not possibly be anymore sweet and charming. Bob drives one way while Lisa takes the money and shares town tidbits. When you reach the end of the tracks, they meet in the middle of the trolley. Bob hands Lisa the steering mechanism, she hands him the fanny pack with the money, we all get up and flip our wooden seats so they face the new direction and off we go. We learned; Goonies and Kindergarten Cop were filmed in Astoria, it is unlawful to remove old pylons from the water, a huge storm hit some four years ago, ripped the roof off of the old net factory that was being converted to a gallery and ruined a significant amount of art. I can’t begin to tell you all the interesting things they shared with us. Well, at least, I thought it was interesting. The thing I think we loved the most about our trolley trip was that Bob and Lisa thank absolutely EVERYONE for riding the trolley. I thought the trolley was something I really didn’t need to do but it was in fact, the highlight of our visit.

On the way home, I made Kim stop at Famous Footwear so I could buy some trailer slippers. My feet keep getting cold in Big Lil and then I can’t get them warm. So please welcome to the family, my new trailer slippers!!!

Saturday was our last day at Nehalem Bay State Park and we had absolutely no plan for the day. We began the day with pecan pancakes and looking forward to a long walk on the beach. Kim pointed out today that we seem to have decided that we no longer need to hike and would much rather just eat seafood and sip wine overlooking the beach. While I cannot dispute her observation, I would like to point out (in our defense) that it has been pouring down rain with high winds for the past week. We did decide that a long walk was a must for the day. We walked along the beach and since it was Saturday, there were people and dogs everywhere. We said hello to just about every person and dog we past. We came upon a beach flag football game which was fun to watch. High levels of testosterone and smack talk permeated the air. We walked into Manzanita and decided to get some groceries so Kim could cook us dinner. Then we hit the bakery across the street and purchased a baguette and chicken salad with the sincere intent of taking them home for lunch. Little did we know that the Surf Pub was right across the street. We decided to go in and see if the Georgia/Tennessee game was on TV. It was not but we sweet talked the owner into putting it on. Well, since one of us is a good southern girl, we decided it would be rude to just sit and watch the game without purchasing a beverage and lunch. I felt a bit guilty ordering a bottle of white wine at 1:30 in the afternoon but since a glass cost $8 and a bottle was $18, it was really the fiscally responsible thing to do. At one point, we did look at each other and say “maybe we should just head home.” But then Kim pointed out that if almost any of you were with us, you would do the same thing and so we stayed and hung out with the locals. We did manage to drag ourselves out of there around 2:30 or so and headed back down the beach.



We were both grinning like fools carrying our “lunch” back home. We got home and promptly took naps because really, wine in the middle of the day is fun but not without it’s consequences. Not to worry….after hot showers, “lunch” for dinner and a night of playing Mah Jong, we felt great. So here’s the thing. I think we are so excited to be out here and seeing all these amazing places that we often tend to “overbook” ourselves. We are so focused on what we are going to do today or next, that we forget to leave ourselves “unscheduled.” We had a great, wonderful, magical day of just being silly and doing whatever presented itself to us all because we didn’t have a plan or any expectations of the day or each other. We need to do more of that but since it is a bit counter-intuitive for us, we may need to practice a bit more. By the way, we realized later that night, when we were congratulating ourselves on a stupendous day, that it had been our anniversary. We had a fabulous anniversary celebration even if we didn’t remember it was our anniversary.
We are now down the coast at Carl G. Washburne Memorial State Park with no connectivity. Once we get connected again, I will look up Carl G. Washburne and find out why his name is on an Oregon State Park.

More rain in the forecast but we are already plotting how to get some hiking into the schedule in and around the precipitation. We are planning to stay here 2-3 days and then most likely we will start to head on back to Boulder. We will check the news before we head home on the outside chance the National Parks will be re-opened but if not, we will take our time heading home and reschedule them for another time. We are past disappointed not to be able to visit Yosemite but hopefully we can try again sometime soon. We will check in with everyone once we get back into cell phone range. We did go for a walk on the beach when we arrived today.


We came across some tide pools.

Kim discovered that she could get cell phone service down on the beach.

She quickly checked for any emergency messages, confirmed the weather forecast and looked up the score of the Bronco’s game since they were losing when we lost service. We won so all is well and we are off to get clean. As I said, I will post this tomorrow someplace, somewhere I can get service.