It seems as though I'll be posting at least a day late for the next couple of days. There just isn't any signal out at the campground for me to use, and quite frankly, I'm tired of sitting in McDonalds all the time. Plus their $ollar menu really sucks these days. (Not that I won't partake once in awhile still).
    Anyway, it was pretty slow yesterday anyway because of all the rain. There was one really nice high point though.... I managed to finally track down a good friend, Dave, that I had been stationed with in Depoe Bay 32+ years ago. He and his wife are living in Newport now and I met up with him while he was at work, so we couldn't talk for to long. It was a good meet up though, and I have to say it was fun to talk to him after all these years and catch up with what he has been doing all these years.
   He ended up staying with the Coast Guard until he retired at the rate of Master Chief Boatswains Mate or E8. For those of you who aren't in the know, a standard Chief Bosun is considered to be so smart and good that they can take their place at the right hand side of Jesus. So a Master Chief, well we won't actually go into where he sits... Of course I'm kidding about all of that, but I will say this, if you were ever on a sinking boat, out in the middle of a hurricane, with 100 foot waves crashing on you and only moments from death... you would want Dave Edwards to be running the Motor Life Boat that was coming out to save your poor sorry butt.
    Evidently I am not the only one who thought this because at different times during his career he was not only the head instructor at the world renowned Heavy Weather and Surf school at Cape Disappointment, but he also went on to be the officer in charge at several small boat stations along the Oregon and Washington coast and on several 110' cutters and other boats. He had a wonderful career and he is what everyone should aspire to if they join up to be on small boats.
    But that aside, we also talked about life after the CG and how his daughter, whom I last saw at the age of about 5, is now married, lives in S. California and is about to have her first baby.  We only had an hour or so, but he called up this morning and invited me to go out for breakfast with he and Nancy, his wife. I'm looking forward to seeing them both and having some more time to hear what they are up to.
    Other than that meeting yesterday there wasn't much else that went on because of the rain. I drove soft for a few miles but between the rain, the wind and the fog there wasn't much chance or reason to get out of the truck.
    Today however, has been much nicer. It rained all through the night, but by late morning it had cleared up enough that there was actual blue sky and sunshine outside. I spent several hours just walking along the beach out at the campground. It is one of the best beaches in the area as far as not being full of people most of the time. Plenty of time to wander the surf line and watch the sandpipers doing their little dance among the wavelets on the shore.
    Grabbed the truck after getting back and headed up to Cape Foul Weather to check out the view from up there. A full 30 miles of visibility, but no sightings of whales from the view point today. I hung out there for an hour or so and made a couple of phone calls that needed to be done, before heading on into Depoe Bay.
   The plan was to have a late lunch there at the Spouting Horn overlooking the bay, because they had been closed the other day when I had been up there. Turns out it wasn't because they are always closed on Sundays and Mondays, it turns out it's because they closed permanently and the building is now for sale.  So with a heavy heart I turned away and went across the street to a new Mexican restaurant that had opened since last time I was in town. It turned out to be pretty good over all, they did a nice tamale and chili relleno plate, and with a couple of glasses of ice tea it sated my hunger pangs pretty well.
  Another hour spent wandering around town taking pictures while the sun was out and then I headed south into Newport. I'm sitting in the public library right now using their WiFi. I'm still needing to go online before I get out of here to see if they still have tickets to the theatre in Lincoln City this evening and a Mandolin concert on Sunday here at the City Theatre in Newport. Will try to up date in another day or two, but I'm not promising anything.


brk*

      Not a whole heck of a lot happened yesterday, other than rain that is, which is why I never got around to actually writing anything down. For the most part I stayed in the trailer all morning and most of the afternoon just reading and listening to the rain drumming on the roof. It sounds soothing for the most part, but after too long it just gets on ones nerves.
   So it wasn’t surprising when I finally had to bust out for a little bit and go do something even if it just meant going into Newport and wandering around the local Wally World there.
   I did end up going over to Burger King for an hour or so and grabbing a small bite to eat. I haven’t actually been to one of those for a long, long time and I just wanted to see what they had to offer that was any different than McDonalds. Turns out that it is pretty much the same menu, other than BK having quite a few more items on their dollar menu than Mickey D’s does. That was a pleasant find as I have started to grow tired of McChicken sandwiches all the time, the only real thing they have for a buck any more.  
   They also have in store WiFi, just as McDonalds does, but this particular store, just like the McDonalds in the area don’t have any electrical outlets to plug into. So it is just a matter of how long your battery lasts as to how long you can sit. Mine will usually last for a little more than an hour if I’m checking email or watching the news, so I am always in a hurry to get as much done as I can in those situations.
    One nice thing about stopping in there this evening was that they had a local paper that listed all the entertainment that is going on for the next couple of days. I may be able to find some local music to go listen to one of these evenings and I did read about a play taking place this weekend in Lincoln City that sounds pretty fun. I’ll just have to run up there either tomorrow or Friday and see about picking up a ticket for it.
   Other than that there wasn’t much else to do so I just headed back to the trailer and read some more and watched a movie on the computer. I dug my old Harry Potter movies out again and started in on the first one of those. I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched them all now, 5 or 6 times at least, but I still get a big kick out of them every time. I guess this means I’ll have something to do at least if the weather remains cold and damp at night.

Astoria Maritime Museum at the mouth of the Columbia River

Oct 21, 2014

A nice reproduction of a pilot skiff. These oar powered boats would of been used to 'put on' and 'take off' river and bar pilots from large ships that were entering or leaving the Columbia River. A pilot was someone with intimate knowledge of wind, wave and current conditions of the local area and were required to be onboard and in charge of navigating large ships in and out of the harbor.

This is one of the last real life wooden motor life boats that the U.S. Coast Guard used. I actually had the honor of serving and being 'qualified' to run the last one of these the Coast Guard had when I was stationed in Depoe Bay back in the late 70's. Quite frankly, even though I was certified to run the one 'we' had, and actually used it on a few sorties we had, I really wasn't that good at it. It's one thing to dock or maneuver a single screw boat by itself, it's a whole nother thing to try and dock when you have another boat, sometimes bigger than yours, tied on along side you. But I'm still glad I had a chance to run this wonderful little boat.

Looking at the stern of a 36 footer. The working crew on a boat out on a mission was two, the coxswain/boat driver, and an engineer/crewmen. But most of the time there was at least one other person to do the actual crewman job.

This is one of the last 44 foot motor life boats used at the 'world famous' heavy weather and surf school at Cape Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia River. I actually got to train and run this boat when I went to the crewman, and later the coxswain schools there at Cape D in the late 70's. I was really sorry to see these boats all go years later, but the new 47 foot MLB seems to be a great replacement.  

The museum actual staged this boat where it is when they got it, built all the support members and laid the framework for the final staging... then they built the new museum addition around it. I like this view because it is so realistic as far as the size of the waves and the angles the boat is in. Sometimes I still miss this stuff.

Within the Coast Guard display area... a small Fresnel lens that was once used in an area lighthouse.

The old Columbia Lightship. This boat use to be permanently anchored off the Columbia River bar, several miles out from the river entrance. It had a large Fresnel light that functioned very much like a lighthouse, as well as a fog signal and bell. It was essentially an entrance buoy and showed the way into the river.

A view of the large 'mushroom' style anchor, one of two, that would hold the ship in position. I remember making a run out to the lightship when I was up at Cape D for coxswain school. We took their mail out to them and brought back the stuff they wanted to send out.

They replaced the lightship with a large entrance buoy many years ago. I am sure all the guys who had duty on this ship are rather relieved that no one else will have to spend two weeks on and two weeks off for several years of duty. Although I did hear that some guys actually liked that duty.

One last view.

Two newer Coast Guard cutters, though new is a bit of a misnomer because both of these ships are probably 15-25 years old, but the Coast Guard has always had to settle for waiting until something actually broke before they could get something new. Or they would just get hand-me-downs from some sister service and then have to deal with keeping it working.

I think the smaller ship is a newer 110' cutter while the larger one is somewhat longer than 200'. No idea what the actual names of them are.

A last view of the docks around Astoria. In the distance are a few large ships that are anchored until either the tide turns or a river pilot is available for their trip up river to Portland or other ports along the way.

brk*

   Was surprised this morning when I actually managed to upload the blog post I finished last night. I had tried several times after finishing up, but had no luck at getting it to go. This morning however, it loaded right up and went off into the ether world as if I was hooked directly into a high speed internet connection. Not sure why it worked, just glad it did.
    It was raining, still, this morning when I got up, so I just hung out at the trailer for a couple of hours and read a little bit. I was out and on the road before noon though, so the whole day wasn't shot at least.
   I turned the truck north and headed up the rock blob known as Otter Crest first. This is a high, volcanic cliff that overlooks the ocean and which Hwy 101 has to climb over on it's way along the coast. At the very top where the highway goes over the crest they have a lookout area you can drive out to and look out over the ocean. On a clear day you should be able to see a good 80-90 miles out into the ocean to the west. Today however this area, given the name 'Cape Foul Weather' by Captain Cook back in the late 1700's, was living up to it's name. High wind, driving rain and fog that didn't even let you see the trees in front of you, let alone the ocean down at the bottom of the cliff. Still... it was neat to sit for a while and feel the full power of nature as it crashed against the shoreline there. The only bad thing was that when I went to turn left and pull back onto the highway I found that the visibility was so poor that I ended up turning right instead for fear of pulling out in front of a car that I didn't see coming.
   I went on into Depoe Bay at that point, just a few miles away from there, in order to get some much needed lunch. My heart was set on eating clam chowder and some kind of sea food at the Spouting Horn restaurant over looking the inner harbor there. But alas, they are closed on Sundays and Mondays these days, so I made do by going down to the Sea Hag and having fish and chips and clam chowder there. Not bad, but it certainly wasn't as nice of a place to sit and enjoy the day.
    It had nearly stopped raining when I came out so I took advantage and walked around town taking pictures of all of my favorite scenes. The waves were sure crashing outside the harbor entrance on what is known as the north and south reefs. Just shallower areas that can really roar when the weather turns nasty. There was also a pretty good spray coming out of the 'Spouting Horn' down below the seawall. That is a blowhole that has an underwater entrance to it that blows water out the top every time a wave comes into the mouth of the slot. Today it was only blowing 60'-70'  in the air. I've seen it during bad storms when it would blow spume all the way across four lanes of highway there in mid town.
   I wandered around for quite awhile, but it soon started to rain again so I headed north towards Lincoln City. I stopped at several pull outs along the way just to watch the waves. There was plenty of action in Little Whale Cove and over at Boiler Bay as well as off Rock Creek Point. It's always fun to watch.
   Stopped in to my favorite used book store up there in Lincoln City and browsed around for about an hour. Found a couple of new books to read if it stays rainy, which I am hearing it will. Just sitting in Micky D's right now, but they don't have an electrical outlet and my battery is almost dead so I'm not sure if this will go out tonight or not. I may just finish this part up and then come back tomorrow and annotate the pictures posted below.

Astoria Maritime Museum at the mouth of the Columbia River

Oct 21, 2014

They have a whole section of the museum set up to display info on the fishing industry in the area including several full sized boats once used. Here is one set up as a long line trawler that was used to fish for salmon.  

 Looking at the stern of the trawler Darle with all of its gear.

A shot showing the catch.

A nice little sailing skiff used as a platform for gill netting salmon in the river.

A view showing some of the gear used in gill netting.

One last view of the sailing skiff.





I have always loved old skylights that come out of ships.




A neat little gang mold that puts lead weights on the bottom line of a gill net so that it pulls the net down tight.



Invented by someone who lived here in Astoria, this machine threaded line on to a net needle, that flat wooden thing on the left. These are used to make and patch nets.



Some of the different types of net floats that have been used over the years.

An old fashioned dive suit used in the boat building industry around Astoria.  



There was a small whaling industry located in Astoria late in the 50's and 60's. It thankfully died out soon after the international whaling conventions came into force. On the left is an old explosive harpoon gun with various whale flensing tools in the back. 

 Along with the whale industry, you also had whalers doing scrimshaw while on their long voyages. This display isn't even close to some I have seen back east, but it still has some nice samples.

brk*

   Moving day again today, so I was up by and going by 8:00 a.m.  this morning.  The best part about the morning was that it had actually stopped raining finally, and there was real sunshine peeking out from around the edges of the big fluffy clouds drifting by. Fearing that it wouldn’t last for long I made a quick breakfast, finished putting stuff away inside the trailer and went out to back the truck up and hook the trailer up. I have to admit that it has become much easier over the years to hook up and get ready to go on my own. It usually takes anywhere from 2 to 10 tries for me to get the hitch ball lined up and directly under the trailer cup, with it working better sometimes than others. This morning it only took 5 quick looks to get it in line and the tongue lowered down onto the ball. The rest is easy after that, plug in the trailers electrical cable, attach the safety chains and then install the load leveler bars and winch them up into position. The last thing to do is install the truck end of the anti sway bar to the hitch, and tighten up the friction screw on it. One final check to make sure everything is put away that needs to be, and then a quick trip over to the dump site to empty the tanks before getting  back on the road. Today I was actually packed up and driving south before 10:00, my usual take off time.

   I was in no real hurry today as it was only around 125 miles to my next stop down by Newport Oregon. With that in mind I went ahead and had a slightly early lunch in the town of Tillamook as I drove through. An hour or so there reading my book and then a short hop from there over to the ‘Blimp Hangar Museum’ on the south side of town. Had meant to visit this several days ago while I was down visiting the cheese factory, but time got away from me on that day so I just saved it for today instead.

    The Blimp Museum is actually located in one of what had been two blimp hangars built and used during WWII to house 6-9 medium sized blimps. These were used to patrol this part of the coast for Japanese and German uboats and other possible invasion forces because they could stay aloft for up to 3 days at a time. The blimps they were using were only medium sized, non-rigid types a couple of hundred feet long apiece. As such, the hangers for these giant air bags had to be huge. Constructed of concrete foundations with wood framed trusses for the roof, they were, and still have, the largest and longest clear span wood framed trusses in the country. There were originally two built there in Tillamook, but one of them burned down in 1996, so now there is only one here, although there are several others scatted along both coasts in the U.S., including a couple in Florida, Washington, California and a couple other places that I don’t recall.

    It is hard to understand how big these places are until you actually walk in the front doors that stretch more than 150 feet over your head. Inside there was enough room to house 6-9 medium sized blimps. To put it into proper perspective; you could play 7 simultaneous professional football games in one of these at one time and still have room left over for the cheer leaders and mascots on the sidelines. What finally got me to except how large they are, was one plaque that explained how there were several families of barn owls that lived and nested in the upper truss chords year round. Biology teachers from surrounding schools often come in to pick the ‘owl pellets’ up off the floor so their classes can dissect them and see what the owls have been eating.

   As far as the actual museum; there were a dozen or so airplanes displayed inside, as well as misc. other stuff associated with the military during WWII. There were several displays with artifacts from the actual air station that was based there during the war. It seems like it was a pretty well established place, one of those bases that were important to the war effort, but nobody ever heard about unless they lived in the area. I have some photos from the day so I’ll see if any of them turn out and then see about posting a few later on.

   Continuing south from there it was a pleasant drive the rest of the way down to the campground. The only exciting thing was the two times I had to stomp on the brakes because the car in front of me all of a sudden decided to stop and turn left. I’m glad I try to leave a good long space between me and the person ahead just for such problems. I am also thankful that my brother in law, Mark, found and fixed the frayed electrical brake wire to my trailer brakes when I stopped by their place back in June.    

   My latest camping spot is located just north of Newport Oregon at Beverly Beach State Park. I pulled in around 5:00 and found that there were plenty of empty spaces to camp in, I just had to drive around until I found one that suited me and the trailer. It is a beautiful little campground, just a couple hundred feet from the ocean, and nestled back into a huge grove of spruce and firs. It does make it rather dark at times, but it feels a little bit primeval as if dinosaurs could show up at any moment.

   One bad thing about the location though is that it is down in a small bowl between a couple of mountains, so there is no real phone reception, and what WiFi I do have from my little portable device, is pretty iffy. I did manage to call up email and face book a while back, but everything was super slow to load, so it is doubtful that there is enough oomph to post anything from it. Will most likely have to wait until tomorrow when I can go into town and find somebody else’s WiFi to log onto.

   For now though it is a nice place to be. I’m signed up for another full week here so I’ll have plenty of time to go and explore. For those of you that don’t know, I was stationed in Depoe Bay, just north of here, when I was in the Coast Guard back in the late 70’s, so this whole area is still rather special to me. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of my old haunts and maybe even finding a new one or two. There is also an old friend that I heard was here and that I would like to reconnect with if he is. Otherwise; there always seems to be plenty of things to do.

 

Looks like it may work.... so here it goes.

 

brk*

   Darn.... there for a few minutes I thought I had lost a whole day. Just turns out that yesterday was rainy pretty much the whole time, so there wasn't much going on that was memorable. I did end up going out to an afternoon movie just to get out for a while, but it was otherwise kind of quiet. Not boring... cuz I'm seldom bored, too many books, movies, puzzles and hobby kits to do, but rather quiet all the same.
   The movie was 'Dracula, the untold story' or some such title. It was actually pretty good in a 'Guys Night Out at the Movies' kind of way. In other words, it was pretty much filled with gratuitous sex and violence, with maybe way to much of the later and not enough of the former. Still it was an interesting take on the Dracula story.
   Otherwise, I spent most of the day reading  various books and magazines and cooked a couple of meals instead of just making sandwiches. Over all it was a nice day for me.
   Still raining today.... all day.... hard! But I had a reservation to go on a train ride down in the town of Wheeler at noon, so I was up early and on the road south by 10:00. Got to Wheeler in plenty of time and spent some of the extra talking to some friends before the train ride. The train today was going to start there in town and then proceed up the Nehalem River for 15 or so miles. In charge of the motive power was a nice little 2-6-2 Pacific type steam locomotive with 6 assorted passenger cars following behind. Because of the rain and wind the open air cars were out of the question for me, but I found a wonderful heavy weight passenger car from the early 1920's that worked just fine. With only 6-8 passengers in it, probably because there was no heat, there were plenty of empty seats to choose from.
   It was really a beautiful ride up the river with lots of colored leaves on the trees and the deep shades of green from the moss covered spruce, ferns and blackberry plants. I did take a few pictures from the train while moving, but not all that many. To get a good picture you had to quickly raise the window and take a couple of shots in a hurry, otherwise the rain blew in with all the wind. The train ran for nearly an hour up river before it stopped at a siding so the engine could run around and hook on to what had been the tail end before. Another hour brought us back to Wheeler and the end of the trip. By that time the wind was blowing the rain pretty much sideways across Nehalem Bay.
   Lucky for me the rain actually stopped for about 20 minutes on my drive back north so I managed to pull over a couple of times and get some shots of the ocean and the breaking waves. When I got to the town of Manzanita I was even able to pull into the state park there and walk on the beach for about 15 minutes. The waves were really crashing on the shores and out on some of the rocks just off the beach. Not sure if any of the pictures will turn out, but if they do I'll post a few of them in a day or two. For now though, here are a couple of photo's from the other day when I went over to Cape Disappointment and walked out to the lighthouse's there.

Cape Disappointment and North Head Lighthouse's

Oct 23, 2014 

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. I took a lot of pictures of this one, but this is the only view that I really liked.

North Head Lighthouse. I like the looks and proportions of this one. Note the nearly clear skies.... that didn't last for very long.

It still needs some much needed repairs and painting, but it still looks pretty good.

brk*

    I actually saw the sun for a change today. It rained all of last night of course, sometimes at a very hard and fast clip, but around 10:00 this morning the sun finally peeked through the clouds, even though it was still raining. With the sun shining it didn't take me long to pack up the truck and get moving. First stop this morning was Ft. Clatsop, just down the road from where I'm camping.  
   Ft. Clatsop was the site where Lewis and Clarke and their Corp of Discovery crew wintered over while in this area.. Even though there is nothing left of the original buildings they constructed, they having rotted away into nothingness long ago, there is still a real nice museum there with lots of exhibits and there is a reconstructed fort that does duty for the original.
    I spent a couple hours reading all of the signs on the exhibits and watching the short movie the rangers were showing before going outside and walking over to the fort. Pretty rustic, but much better than it would of been out in the weather. With the rain that has been happening these past few days it seems like it would of been a miserable time if they had not had a decent shelter for the 4 months they were in the area.
    Once done with that, and because the sun was shining even more, I headed across the Sky Bridge over the Columbia River and headed for Cape Disappointment and the two lighthouse's out there. Of course as soon as I crossed the river and turned west, it started to cloud up again so that by the time I made it into Ilwaco Washington the rain was just pouring down. I kept going though, and by the time I got to the state park at the tip of the peninsula it had slowed down to a bit more than a drizzle. Of course there was also all of that sleet that was coming down with it, but even it soon stopped too. In the end I managed to walk out to each of the lighthouses, the one on top of Cape 'D' and the one over at North Head, and took a few pictures of each. I was wondering at the time if I will ever be able to visit them when it is actually sunny out side.
    I didn't stay there very long after that, as the rain was starting to come back in and the wind was really starting to howl. Indeed, on the way back to Astoria the radio was reporting on an apparent tornado that had touched down in the town of Longview, about 40 miles up river. Something that doesn't happen very often, if ever, in this part of the country.
   Since it was still sunny when I got back to town I just parked the truck and started walking up and down the streets in the old part of downtown Astoria. Nothing really new or outstanding about any of it, but still fun to look at all the old buildings and go in to an antique store or two. Also took a bit of a stroll up and down the waterfront just because its always interesting. Lots of birds out of course, but also quite a few sea lions and seals cavorting out in the water. Also quite a lot of boat traffic going by on the river. Two ocean going ships came in and dropped anchor out by Tongue  Point and several fishing boats were headed out to sea. It's always fun to see the hustle and bustle around an active sea port like this one.
    Just hanging out right now. The clouds are drifting in again and it looks like the rain will start up again before long. I'm hoping it will clear up again, at least a little bit, tomorrow as there are still plenty of things to do. Right now though; here are the rest of the photo's of Multnomah Falls I took last week. For the first batch check out my post from yesterday.

Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge - Oct 16, 2014

Part II

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

brk*

   I guess there can no longer be any doubt that winter has finally come to the NW. It started to rain the day before I took off from Portland, and it hasn't really stopped since. Yesterday started out with rain, just a continuation from the night before, and then just kept raining for the rest of the day, then on through the night, and then all through today too. Looks like it is going to wet out here for a couple more days.
   It hasn't been all that bad though. My mornings are pretty much the same, get up, shower, grab some breakfast while reading email and the comics.  There isn't any free WiFi out at the state park for the computer of course, but my portable WiFi thingy does actually work out here, even though the signal is less that one would like.
    But getting back to what has been happening; I went into Astoria yesterday slightly after noon and went to the Maritime Museum there. I've been to it several times before, but there always seems to be something new to see, plus it is even fun to go back and reread some of the display signs again and take another look at the displays themselves. They did have a few new things of course, including a whole new display explaining about the shark fishery that ran out of the Astoria area during WWII. It seems that the U. S. Air Force had figured out that the night vision of  its pilots could be enhanced if they consumed large doses of vitamin A. Now this was a time way ahead of someone figuring out how to synthesize vitamin A, but it turns out that shark livers are very high in it, you just have to find them, catch them, take out their livers, convert them into cod liver oil and wa-la.... you have a great source of natural vitamin A, just what you need.
    It seems like it was a perfect match for the Astoria fishing fleet. They needed a source of income since they were just starting to come out of the depression, and they were currently in the midst of a war where everything was scarce and very expensive. So they started fishing for sharks, and since the government was paying around $380 for every 42 lb. can of liver they could find, they could make a pretty good living at it. That would be more than $10 per lb. in todays money, so it was a very lucrative living for a lot of people who needed it.
    But that wasn't all there was to see at the museum. There was a bunch of new stuff in the Native American area having to do with trapping and salmon fishing and some new stuff in the salmon fisheries section. Nothing new that I could see in the Coast Guard display, but it is always cool to go back and read what they have in there.
    One of the best things though was found in the gift shop where they had a couple of new and different Coast Guard shot glasses in stock, as well as a new one for the Maritime Museum itself.
    Very wet this morning, but I was up early enough to be out the trailer door before noon. I drove south on Hwy 101 heading for Tillamook and the cheese factory there. I spent a couple of hours watching them cut and wrap hundreds of pounds of aged cheddar while right next door they were making hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of new cheese. It is a very modern facility there with room to store and age more than 3 million pounds of cheese at one time. But I remember the first visit I had at the old factory when all the cheddaring and separation of curds and whey was all done in long troughs buy several guys with these huge arms from turning over and cutting up the batches by hand.
   Of course for me the best part is after you look at all the machines and read all the displays. That would be out at the gift shop and tasting area where you can try out a bunch of their cheese varieties before going on in where you can buy them in packages sized from 2 oz. little bits all the way up to 20 lb. wheels of aged sharp cheddar. But even that isn't the best part, that is taken up with the ice cream section where you can go in and buy a double dip in a waffle cone for less than $4.00. Now that may actually seem like a lot of money for an ice cream cone, but by the time they hand pack it into one of their home made cones, you basically have a full pint hanging out there at the end of your arm. I had 'Wild Berry Blackberry' and Oregon Coast Blueberry and it was wonderful.
    It was a great way to spend a couple hours on a rainy afternoon, but it was still raining hard when I came out around 4:30. It was to late by then to go to the Tillamook Air Museum, but I did go locate it so I would know how to get there next time. I also wanted to see if they had a big parking lot there in case I didn't get back to it this week. Since it does have a lot of room, I figure it will be easy enough to stop by there next Monday on my way down the coast to a new camp spot.
    I drove back towards Fort Stevens after that, but stopped when I got to the town of Seaside and went to a movie instead. I went and saw the new movie 'Fury' staring Brad Pitt and a couple other well known actors. It was a good 'Boy's Night Out' movie even if there were no other guys out there with me. A powerful movie, but very graphic in it's depiction of the horrors of war. Maybe if more of our politicians had actually experienced what war was really like, they would be less inclined to get us into another one. Not that I have any direct experience with it either, but then I always knew it was something I really didn't want to see up close and personnel.
    I am hoping that the rain will slow down somewhat in the next couple of days. While it is okay to spend time outside while it is misting or raining lightly, it has been really coming down at times these last few days. It is also hard to take a camera out in it to take pictures. Guess it will turn out what ever way it does, not much that I can do to make it change.
    For now though; here are a bunch of photo's from about a week ago when I went up the Columbia River gorge and took some pictures at Multnomah Falls. They are all pretty much of the same subject so there won't be much commentary. I did have a problem picking only a couple of good one's out though....so I'm just going to post all the ones I liked.... because I can. This is only half of them, the rest will show up in the next post.

Multnomah Falls along the Columbia River - Oct 16, 2014



 



 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

brk*

    Moving day today so I was up early getting ready to go. It always takes a little while for me to put things back away when I have been in one place for more than a couple of days. Since I had been in Portland for a week, there was a lot of stuff that I had pulled out of cupboards and out from under the seats. But after a hurried breakfast and a last look at email and the comics, it all disappeared back into the cubby hole where it had come from.

   It was raining a bit this morning so that always adds a bit of time on to what it normally takes to pack up. Even with that though it was only slightly after 10:00 when I punched in my next destination and pulled out onto the road out of town. Emma, my GPS, actually routed me north up I-5 towards Seattle in order to take me over to the town of Astoria Oregon. It actually makes sense because the Columbia River runs to the NW after passing by Portland and continues in that direction until it finally meets the Pacific Ocean at the

Columbia River Bar near Ilwaco Washington. Along the way the highway turns north at the town of Longview and it was there that Esmerelda and I left the interstate and crossed over the river to the south side of it. From Longview it is another hour to Astoria and then about 20 more minutes more for me to make our way out to Fort Stevens State Park where we were hoping to stay. There were no rangers present when I  pulled in to check on sites, but they had directions to go and find a spot and then fill out a check-in form and drop it back by before the end of the day. There is certainly no lack of sites to choose from, so I pulled into the 1^st of 6 loops of RV/Trailer/Car camping and found a nice little pull-through spot under some beautiful old fir trees. There are lots of old trees growing in the park here, some of them as much as 100 years old I would guess, so they already have trunks that are more than 3’ in diameter and more than 100’ tall. They are pretty impressive when you see a whole grove of them as you walk down one of the walk/bike paths here in the park.

   I got unhitched and all set up without any problems. I’m in a space that has electrical and water service, but no sewer hookups. This is the most common type of site no matter where you go, as it is just too hard to run a sewer line to each individual camp site. They do have a few full hook-ups here somewhere, but I find that it is no problem for me to use the tanks for a week and then dump it all at once at the end of the week when I’m headed out. For all of this the park system charges me $25 per day and I find that to be pretty acceptable.

   Once the trailer was all secure and I had found some lunch for myself I headed on back into Astoria to see some of the town. It was too late in the afternoon to see much so I settled for just walking up and down some of the streets downtown, and walking out to the edge of the river where one can watch ships anchored there waiting for a turn of the tide before making their way up river to Longview or Portland.

    I’m looking forward to being here for a week as there are a lot of places I want to visit while here. In Astoria there is the Maritime Museum of course. I have been there at least a half a dozen times before, but there always seems to be something new every time I show up. Plus it also features one of the original Coast Guard 44’ motor life boats that I trained on while going to heavy weather/surf school out at Cape Disappointment. It is the retired 44300 boat and I remember spending many hours on it practicing towing and search and rescue techniques on it when I was much younger.

    Across the river are the Cape Disappointment and North Head Lighthouse’s to go hike out to and take pictures of as well as a small museum dedicated to the Lewis and Clarke exploration. On this side is Fort Clatsop which tells the tale of the winter they spent on this side waiting out the winter weather, making salt and restoring supplies for their trip home.

    If it keeps raining there is always a trip to the town of Seaside to wander around the shops there or further on to the town of Tillamook. There I can take a nice indoor tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory and have a double dip ice cream cone of two of the 40-50 types they make. I’m hoping for blackberry and peach, but making the choice is half the fun.

    There is also another museum there that I have never made it to. Built during the years leading up to WWII, the blimp hanger(s), there was once two of them, were the biggest single clear span wooden building in the country, and maybe even the world. I’ll have to check on that though. But now they are used to showcase a few old airplanes and now, so I have heard, some old train locomotives and cars. That will dovetail well with my steam train ride next Saturday when I have reservations to ride along the Nehalem River for a couple of hours on some newly reclaimed track and right-of-way. So I’m pretty excited about the whole week.

   Right now though; here is one photo I took a couple days ago when I visited Multnomah Falls just to the east of Portland. There will be others once I get them done.

Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls located about 30 miles east of Portland Oregon along the Columbia River Gorge

brk*