And just like that, we were back in Oregon. We have really been blessed by the Weather Gods so far on this trip. We had rain while relocating from Gig Harbor to Astoria. When we made our obligatory trip to one of the local breweries, the town was dead and we were not quite sure why so many had strongly recommended Astoria. Well, there is nothing like sunshine to lift your spirits! We went home that day and researched things to do in town and were extremely happy to find there is a 6 mile harbor hike/bike trail. That and the next three days of wonderful weather suited us just fine.
We stayed at the Lewis and Clark RV Resort which was extremely well maintained but full of mosquitoes! Jeff says that the big ones (these were huge) are males and they won't bite you. I am pretty sure he is making this up. Nothing ever bites Jeff because all the little rascals gorge themselves on my yummy blood! Anyway, we noticed a Rutherford County tag on the giant RV beside us, so I introduced myself. Steve Jackson and his wife were such nice people. And what do you know? He graduated from Riverdale HS just 10 years before me in the Boro! He also went to UT for college and then ended up living outside of Charlotte but his parents are both still living in Murfreesboro. I'm going to have my Boro Girls investigate to see if someone knows them!
Astoria is the oldest town on the Pacific Coast and has the first post office west of the Rocky Mountains. Established in the early 1800s, the architecture is Victorian with perhaps some depression era updates. Originally most of the buildings were built on pilings in the river because there is very little flat land to build on at the shore. However, in 1922, there was a massive fire which destroyed many of the buildings leaving behind many old pilings like footprints of the previous inhabitants. The town seems to be going through a bit of a renaissance even today with new homes being built and the businesses downtown coming alive.
The town (only a few more than 10k residents) is situated at the mouth of the Columbia River, the largest river entering the Pacific Ocean in the western hemisphere. The mouth of the river joining up with the Pacific is the broadest open ocean meets fresh water river outlet in the world. (That is from the Astoria historical information and not Wikipedia - I had to take a picture to remember the details).
 |
| Pilot boat shuttling a river pilot to a ship |
The ship channel on the Columbia extends 100 miles inland to Portland and is extremely dangerous. Ocean going vessels rely on experienced pilots to steer their ships from the Pacific through the mouth of the Columbia and to Astoria. From Astoria, a different experienced pilot who knows the river, then takes over the steerage of the ships. While we were there, there were up to 8 ships out in the river headed toward Portland. Jeff and I both wondered with the current foreign trade imbalance, how could so many EMPTY ships be coming off the Pacific? We still don't understand that one, but they were all 100% empty!
 |
| Bridge to Washington |
There is a bridge that traverses the Columbia between Washington and Oregon that we drove Sally and Betty across to get here. I hope there is an equally easy way to get out of town since the town streets are steeper than San Francisco's as far as I can tell. On one particular street, we were so amazed that Jeff parked Sally and got out with his level app to measure the angle....17%....believe me, you had better have good tires and better weather when going up or down this street! Whew.
