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

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