Astoria to Tellia!

Yesterday, Dad and I did one of our "many to come" weekend excursions. Being the history buff that he is he wanted to travel to Astoria, Oregon, the end of Lewis and Clark's journey west. Thus, we have "Astoria to Tellia". Saturday about 10:30 am we headed northwest. Because we don't know much about this part of the country we took the looooooong way through Portland. Having finally traveled outside the city limits we began a slight, at first, ascent into the mountains between Portland and the coast. At about 1,000 feet we began to see snow on the side of the road. Lucky for us it did not snow, only drizzled a little, because we have no snow tires or chains. We peaked at about 1500 above sea level. The temperature was a chilly 33 degrees. Just before Astoria we came upon Fort Clatsop which is where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805/06. It was a very small 33 people sized fort.

As you can see the pine trees out here are huge but oh so beautiful. Most of the trees have all that green moss on every branch too.

Continuing on into Astoria we ate at McDonald's because it was now 2pm and we were very hungry. Knowing this was a port I asked a young girl where the docks were because we wanted to see the big ships. She had a puzzled look on her face and pointed down the road a little ways. Going outside and heading down the road we felt rather foolish because there just across the street were many large ships going down the Columbia River. Duh!

Dad was still not satisfied that we had not gone clear to the end of Lewis and Clark's journey. So we headed across the river to Cape Disappointment, Washington. There we were able to hike to a lighthouse on the coast. It was beautiful as you can see.

The wind blew as if to blow us over the edge but the view was worth it. The sun was setting fast and we did not want to have to cross the mountains in the dark with possible ice so we headed back. Not quite making it to Cape Disappointment  was a disappointment for us as well. We plan to finish this trip next weekend. The highway was fine and it was a wonderful trip. On the way back we saw this which brings us to The End of
"Astoria to Tellia".

                                             We wondered if that was his dog or his wife.