Oregon

We are sitting here in a corner suite of a hotel in Astoria, Oregon watching a pretty nice sunset across the mouth of the Columbia River. We are literally steps from the river and at the foot of the bridge heading south into the heart of the Oregon Coast. Its been raining hard for the past 2 days, but we have managed to miss much of it.



Last night we found an interesting hotel on the dunes in Westport, half way down the Washington coast, and it stormed something special! We had planned to camp, but the camp ground was pretty much a sea of mud so we both quickly decided to find other accommodations until the weather cleared. We walked the beach before gathering odds and sods from the local store for dinner and then settled in to watch a movie while it stormed out side. The decision was made for us to travel on this morning...the breakfast was pretty bad, so if the food isn't good we usually move on!

Lovely drive down a quiet coast road with a few storms on the way through, but a nice drive none-the-less. It was a good opportunity to practice a little photography as well. Crossing the mouth of the Columbia River was pretty cool as its a long, fast run across the lower bridge before almost launching up and off the main bridge! After a great fish shop lunch we went for a walk along the river...the walk way seems to run for many miles past early 20th century houses on the slopes overlooking the river. Of course earlier folks in the area knew not to settle on the flood plain, but there is considerable development on the plain today. On our walk we heard lots of noise from the warf area and discovered a large number of very loud sea lions had taken over the warves!! We were able to get very close to the 'rookery' to watch their interactions...lots of fun! The next warf along dated back to a cannery in 1875 and we found a pretty good public house out on the end of it where we sampled some Oregian beer...'Rogue Otter Ale'! Very nice!!

Tomorrow we expect to actually do a little camping as we begin our coast drive. Weather looks pretty good, and if the wind settles down a bit we hope to climb on our bikes! Best deal so far is good quality California Merlots for $9!! The wine we pay $18 at home is about $6 here...no kidding! Shopping at Safeway is a whole new experience...Annemarie has had a little trouble getting me to move out of the wine section! Oh, and petrol here is about US$2.85/US Gal...about Cdn $1.25 less per gallon!