Back in November, Sean and I took advantage of the extended Veteran's Day weekend to get out of town. I could never remember visiting Astoria (although my mom says I've been there) and Sean said he didn't think he'd ever been there (no word on what his mom said).

We stayed two nights in the historic Hotel Elliot. Our first stop was at Fort Clatsop, the site where Lewis & Clark spent their winter in 1905-06. We also drove out onto Clatsop Spit, to the very northwestern point of Oregon. It was a pretty grey day and not much to see, unfortunately. Even still, I think it was one of my favorite stops. We checked into our hotel in downtown Astoria and then walked to the Fort George Brewery, a local brewery I'd been interested in checking out. Our dinner & beer were pretty delicious and ended up taking a growler of the local brew back to our room.

The next day was so nice that we went for a walk on a path that parallels the Columbia river. We also spent about 5 minutes visiting Fort Astoria. It wasn't that interesting except that the marker is in the exact same location that the actual Fort was built (Fort Clatsop was in an area believed to be the same, but no way to know for sure).

We took the short drive up to the Astoria Column. There were some great views from the parking area and unfortunately, the Column was closed due to maintenance. We drove across the Astoria-Megler bridge to Washington and stopped at Dismal Nitch, where Lewis & Clark stopped due to poor weather while traveling down the Columbia, as well as their Station Camp. This was probably the most disappointing stop we made. There was merely a sign stating that it was the site of the Station Camp. You had to be careful not to miss it either, as it was a small gravel pull-out on the side of the road. It was the site where Lewis & Clark camped while they were looking for a good place to spend the winter (which ended up being the Fort Clatsop site).

Then we drove back to Oregon and spent some time at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. There was some really interesting information about the Coast Guard as well as the hard work that the Columbia River Pilots and Columbia Bar Pilots do. For dinner, we ate at Astoria Brewing/Wet Dog Cafe, another local brewery.

The day we left, it was really windy and stormy. From the roof of our hotel, you could see a ship coming in that required extra assistance coming up the river from the tug and tow boats, to keep from hitting the bridge!

See pictures here!

Post a comment

---

Post a comment