Road trip - Day 14

Roseburg, OR to Sacramento, CA

We got rolling early on Friday morning and pushed right through Southern Oregon to California. On our way up we had planned to stop in old Shasta and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area but we went to Turtle Bay instead. We decided we'd go to on our way back to Sacramento.

We visited the Museum at the Shasta State Historic Site first. Behind the museum is a relocated barn from another part of town and a collection of 19th century farm and agriculture-related industrial equipment from the area.



Fort Clatsop was built in 1805, but it was in ruins within 20 years. The fort we visited the previous day was a replica of the fort built in 2006 (the first, built in 1955, burned in 2005). The buildings probably look better than they did the day the fort was completed in 1805. Old Shasta is the complete opposite. What is left of Main Street stretches for about a block along Hwy 299 west of Redding. The remains of the buildings have been supported by some metal bars to ensure they do not fall on unsuspecting visitors, but otherwise the ruins have been left in a state of suspended decay.







In front of the building sites are plaques labeling what each was in the 1850s. The block had grocery stores, dry goods, bank, a bakery, and a jeweler just to name a few of the businesses.

Here is an old grocery store:



After spending the afternoon in Old Shasta (and wearing out the kids) we got back in the car and pushed on to Sacramento where Tom's dad was waiting for us. While we drove, he flew over us back to Sacramento for work. It was nice to stop for the evening and not have to find a restaurant. The girls were happy to see Grandpa again and even Mae seemed to realize we were on the way home.

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Road trip - Day 13

Astoria, OR to Roseburg, OR

We decided to make it a short driving day and spend our time in Astoria and at Lewis and Clark National Park. All we wanted to do was get close enough to the border to make Sacramento within striking distance.

I woke up early so I could go out and take pictures of the neighborhood near the hotel without a baby bouncing up and down on my back or anyone whining at me about being bored. I think my favorite house was this one:


It is not the prettiest but I just thought it had so much character. If you cannot tell, it is an old church that they added a house to the back of. Here is the front:



The picture of the house side really does not do it justice. The whole thing is just so funky.

Most of the houses were cute and simple.



At least half were in need of a fair to significant amount of restoration. I noticed the houses in the best condition were always the biggest ones, and all but one was a business of some kind.

Here is the very colorful Astoria Inn:



This house I really loved. This is the one that was not a business:



It was in just the wrong place and orientation on the lot for me to be able to get a picture of the whole house. I finally got to the point where I was going to have to walk pretty far away from the hotel to take any more pictures and I did not want to get a phone call that the baby was crying to be fed and have to walk 20 minutes to get to her, so I went back.

We went to the Maritime Museum first. It was really nice. I wish the kids had let me read even half of the displays. After that we walked to the Flavel House Museum. It is this huge Queen Anne home built by a prominent family that has been restored and furnished as it would have looked when it was built. The girls really liked it. We had lunch at a great brew pub called Fort George Brewery. We loved that the waiter had a Goonies t-shirt on.

On our evening walk the night before, we spotted a winery, Shallon Winery. I had been looking for something unique to take my friend who was taking care of our cat for us. After lunch we went there. It was a riot. The owner was something like the soup nazi from Seinfeld. I do not mean it in a bad way. I found him totally hilarious. I am certain our kids were making his day even more cranky. Laura spotted his zen sand garden and thought it was a sandbox, and messed it all up. Mae was just cranky by then and kept fussing through his spiel. BUT... his wine was excellent! We bought several bottles. You have to go there if you are in the area. Oh, and he ships most of them so you could take my word for it and just take a gamble.

After the winery we drove up to the Astoria Column. It was built in the 1920s by the Astor family. It is 500 ft tall and sits on a hill above town.



Masculine, isn't it? It makes me wonder about those poor Astor men and needing to compensate for something.

The only way up to the top is a spiral staircase that seems to go on forever. We did all make it to the top. I got up there to realize that I seem to have developed something like Vertigo. It was pretty disturbing. I just felt sick and did not want to be up there and certainly not look down. I did manage to snap a couple of pictures, one of the view south, and one of the view northwest.





I got off the top of the tower as fast as I could. After such a long hike up the stairs, I was pretty disappointed to have spent such a short time up there. The day was moving on faster than it felt and it was time to say goodbye to Astoria and head south. We agreed we want to go back, hopefully without kids next time, and spend more time there.

Just a few miles from Astoria is Lewis and Clark National Park. The pair ended their journey at Fort Clatsop. It has been reconstructed on the original site.



We only had time to walk through the visitor's center and take a ranger guided walk around the fort. We drove down the coast for a while after that and then made our way back to I-5.

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Road trip - Day 12

Bellingham, WA to Astoria, OR

Wednesday came up faster than I expected and it was time to hit the road and head home. Our destination was Astoria, someplace I've wanted to go ever since I saw The Goonies as a kid. We lucked out with a totally uneventful drive.

We stopped for lunch in Olympia. The AAA guidebook pointed us to an excellent Indian buffet. Yum. We decided to go see the state capitol. Oh boy does Olympia have some messed up traffic flow! Seriously, what the heck is up with that town? Not only could we not find anyplace to park near the capitol, but once we got in to the streets that lead to the parking, we could not get out. All of them were one-way leading back to the center. I think it took us 15 minutes to get out of that block. Then we tried to drive to the AAA office to get a guidebook for N. Cal and came across a roundabout. Why do they do this? Hasn't anyone learned American drivers cannot handle these things? After looping twice ("look kids, Big Ben, Parliment") we ended up on a street with some kind of median slalom going on. We finally get to the street we need, but no left turns. Argh!! So we had to turn right and Tom was so frustrated by this point, he just made a U-Turn right there (even though it looked like you were not supposed to). Oh yea, and my two picts of the Washington capitol building did not come out so great... probably because I jumped out of the car, snapped them, and got back in.

The rest of the drive was much nicer. We crossed the Columbia in Longview, WA and took Hwy 30 along the river to Astoria. Astoria was just as I thought it would be. If you are an architecture junkie, especially old houses, you'd love it. I could have walked the neighborhoods all day.

Astoria was founded on fur trading but it was built up around fishing and canning. By the 1970s, all the canneries were moving. Bumblebee finally closed its last cannery. We talked to a couple of locals who said the town in the 80s was a sad place. In the mid-90s, Burlington Northern stopped freight rail service as well. Almost all the old canneries are now gone.



After getting a place to stay, we took a walk along the riverfront next to the train tracks.



We passed the old Astoria station.



Like so many buildings in Astoria, the station was beautiful, but sitting, rotting, in need of someone to notice it again. As we were walking, we kept spotting a strange sight.





A sign along the riverfront finally shed some light on these. The entire downtown of Astoria had once been built out over the river on docks and piers. In 1922, a fire destroyed nearly all of downtown. All that is left are these clusters of piles. The Maritime Museum has pictures of the old downtown and it was really an amazing sight.

The whole town was so different from home. At home, we ooh and ahh at the handful of streets near the old town centers where the older houses can be found. Most are beautifully restored, all are prohibitively expensive. In Los Osos, it is nearly impossible to find a home more than 35 years old. In Astoria, it was almost impossible to find anything built in the last 80 years. Most of the buildings were in states of arrested decay or active decay.



It would be sad but the town is clearly on a upswing. I am certain its biggest saving grace is being located on the coast. Slowly, people seem to be fixing up the beautiful old buildings.



Bob Vila could do a whole season of This Old House here. I was imagining buying up a bunch of them and fixing them up.

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Road trip - day 11

Victoria, BC

Ok, that was a bit more than 5 days. I was starting to have some serious laptop withdrawls! My baby is back and I can finally finish going through the rest of our trip pictures and everything I've taken since then!

On Tuesday we took the ferry from Bellingham to Victoria for the day. I was really excited about this trip. I took the Port Angeles ferry (which is much bigger) to Victoria years ago on a trip with my parents and having a great time. We'd been having perfect weather all the previous week but Tuesday started out cold and foggy. The ferry ride took us right through the San Juan Islands.





The first place we went once we arrived was the British Columbia Parliment. I remembered the building from my last trip but it was still so impressive.





After Parliment, we walked over to the Empress Hotel, which is right on the waterfront, near Parliment.



From there we decided to get lunch and walk through old town. We made our way around to the Royal British Columbia Museum. I had been in it last time and was sad that we did not have enough time to go inside this trip. We did look at their totem collection outside.





The last thing we did was take a walk along the waterfront. The light rain and clouds had cleared so I got another couple of nice pictures of the Empress Hotel and the Victoria shoreline.





The ferry ride home was sunnier and warmer but the fog and clouds still had not cleared all the way.



Our trip home ended with a beautiful sunset over the San Juans.

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5 days?!?

How can I go without my computer for 5 days?? That is how long they say it will take to fix my laptop. Ok, I know it could be worse. I mean, I have other computers in the house I can use (like Tom's, which I am on now). But all of my stuff is on the laptop and all my pictures are there. I want to see the last picts from our trip!

I am going through withdrawls...

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To be continued...

My laptop had a small accident on our trip which looks easy enough to fix with the right tools (which I do not have). So, that means no more pictures until I can take it in to the mac store on Monday. I am going crazy wanting to see the pictures I took the last few days of the trip which are trapped in my camera right now.

So, hopefully all we be back to normal on Monday.

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Road trip - Day 9

Seattle, WA

We spent Saturday in Seattle visiting one of my oldest friends, Neal, and his wife, Diana. I had not seen him in too long so it was a pretty great day. Since it was Labor Day weekend, we decided to avoid places that would be crowded with people. We met up at Neal and Diana's place and went to a local Greek restaurant for lunch, yum. After lunch we went to Discovery Park. Mae started off a great photo day for me by looking adorable in a patch of dandylion covered grass.



We picked some genuine Washington apples and found a great tree to hide under and swing from the branches.





The grass on the fields and hills were covered with dandylions.



We stopped to enjoy the views of the sound and then headed down to the beach.





After Discovery Park we decided to get some ice cream. We drove over to Fremont, which is the center of the universe (or so the sign said). I have to say the area did offer some great images.

This is the building that Coldstone Creamery is in:



A Russian rocket attached to the top of a building:



There was a 15ft statue of Lenin in the middle of town:



And last, but possibly most memorable, was the troll under the Hwy 99 bridge eating a real VW bug:



Our last stop for the day was the SAM sculpture park.





We watched the sun set and then it was time to go.

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Road trip - Day 7

Mt. Baker State Park

We spent the day in the mountains on Thursday. It was absolutely beautiful. Our first views were of Mt. Shuksan from Heather Meadow.



Along the trail around the lake were wild blueberries.



After walking around the lake, we drove further up the mountain to Artist's Point to get a view of Mt. Baker. The surroundings made me feel like I should be calling out "Riccola!"



Mount Baker was hiding under clouds at first.



On our way back down the trail, the clouds moved and let us glimpse the summit.



After a fun time in the mountains, we headed back down. We stopped in a little town named Glacier for ice cream. I guess they don't like pink flamingos much there, or humping.

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