Thursday, April 17, 2008

ON THE MIGHTY COLUMBIA





































ON THE MIGHTY COLUMBIA


Yesterday I posted just kind of a teaser entry about my trip to Astoria and my several days there on vacation. I know that travelogues can be boring so I will try to keep from making this too long.

The weather out there was iffy -- partly sunny, sometimes rainy; amazingly, the weather people got it right. As I have been to the coast so very many times (it was almost my late husband Steve's and my second home during the last three years of his life), I mostly go out there for the atmosphere and the pleasure of being by the Columbia River and -- if the weather permits -- the beach in Seaside or Cannon Beach.

One of the first things that I noticed was the little trolley that I posted a close-up picture of yesterday. It went by on the tracks behind the motel quite often on Sunday, and here is a better picture of it. (To see it larger, just click on the picture and it will take you to my Flickr site, where it will come through with a lot better detail.)

Astoria Waterfront Trolley 1

I kept taking pictures of it because I kept thinking that the ones I had already taken weren't good enough! It says "Astoria Waterfront Trolley" on it and there is a little station across the tracks, but there is fencing between the motel and the stop, so it took me a while to figure out how I would get to the station to ride on the trolley if I wanted to. (I noticed after a couple of days that the fence ended a ways beyond the back of the motel, and so I could have easily accessed the station; by that time, it was raining a lot, though -- I will have to ride on it the next time I go out if the weather is good enough.)

I love the big ships that anchor on the river as well. Most of the time, there were two anchored out there, but I got this shot of three at anchor -- the most that I saw. One of them left not long after I got this picture.

Three ships anchored

I think I love the ships so much because I have a memory of my grandfather taking me to see some when I was young and visiting in Stockton, California with my family. I need to do some research on this because Stockton is quite far inland and so this may be a faulty memory. However, I did see big ships with my grandfather somewhere and at some point in my childhood. I thought they were fascinating.

On Monday, I went up to Long Beach, Washington, and shopped despite the rain. I found that the shop configuration there had changed since I was there a year ago, but I still was able to buy a number of "By Taylor" outfits -- my favorite. I got some white for summer! Then I went to Seaside, to the Factory Stores and downtown Seaside, where I bought some goodies for Jeff, Steph, Noah and Emily as thanks for watching out for my cats and bringing in my mail and newspaper while I was gone.

Each day, back at the motel, I read Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama. I actually finished it out there, and it's a pretty big book. I loved it! Senator Obama is THE MAN I want to be our next President.

Tuesday I drove south, and as I mentioned, I stopped at Mo's in Cannon Beach and I was disappointed to find them closed. (I will just have to eat some of my Campbell's Chunky clam chowder, which comes somewhat close to Mo's but to be truthful, I've never found clam chowder to rival theirs.) I did some more shopping in the Tillamook Cheese Factory gift shop after I had eaten my lunch there.

Other than at the Cheese Factory, my meals were deli sandwiches from Fred Meyer. That may have made up for the snacking I did on the pretzels and potato chips.

I keep getting prompts telling me that Blogger autosaving is failing, and when I click on the "save now" butten, what I have written is saved, but I don't want to press my luck. I will call this good enough for today.

I enjoyed my trip -- it was truly one of rest and relaxation. I would love to go out there again before long.

No comments:

Post a Comment