September 24, 2015 Astoria, Oregon

We started out today at Fort Clatsop. This is where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter when they  finally got to the Pacific Ocean. They stayed 102 days here, only 12 days it didn’t rain and only 6 were clear. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest! They were smart enough to put the fort in a temporary tsunami assembly area.  Here are a few things seen in the museum there. The Clatsop indians they met on the coast wore these conical hats to keep the rain of their heads. They made dug out canoes from single pieces of red cedar. The statue is of Lewis and Clark.

 

The fort is in a beautiful wooded area on the peninsula.  This is a re-creation of the fort from the plans that Clark drew on the elk skin case that he kept his papers in.

 

John photo bombed my fort photo. After the fort we hiked to the  spot on the Netul river where they landed.

At the Netul landing area. These pilings are left over from logging operations in the area.  The hike back was through a cedar forest. 

 

Welcome to Astoria. The oldest settlement  west of the Rockies. We have seen 3 other similar wooden indian sculptures across the country, we think it is the same artist.  Downtown Astoria has many scores of beautifully preserved 19th century and early 20th century structures. 

Fort  Astoria was built by the first group of settlers to the area lead by John Jacob Astor. It was later renamed Fort George. Behind Fort Aster  we had lunch at the Fort George Brewery on a nice outside deck. John is reading the beer book.

The Queen Anne style Flavel house was originally built for Capt Flavel in 1864. It is now a museum. We went to pier 39 and toured the Hanthron cannery museum where huge amounts of seafood were processed and canned in long processing lines. It is the oldest cannery still standing on the Columbia river. Construction  of the original buildings and docks began in 1875.

Sea lions live on these rocks in the harbor,with Astoria in the background. Astoria is surrounded on three sides by water and the fourth by a state forest. It is renowned  for it’s picture book Victorian homes and it’s steep hills.  Some of the fauna and flora we saw on our hike today.

     

Back at the campground I rode my bike to the beach and photographed  the 1902 wreck of the Peter Iredale and the cool clouds over the ocean.