Written February 2019
Day 3
So…waking up a 5am was a bit of a stretch. The alarm went off…and then the alarm got shut off. Then we woke up a couple hours later, allowing the sun to come in and wake us up more naturally. We had a couple of pastries for breakfast this morning, and then snuck out of the house before Imelda or Richard came down. We drove out to the Cathedral Tree Trailhead, which would take us up to the Astoria Column, and pass by a 300 year old spruce tree on the way. It was a nice trail…but not much signage. On the way back down, we went off on a couple side trails…but we weren’t too sure of where they went, so we didn’t go more than probably a 1/4 mile or so on any of them.
Cathedral Tree trail
Up at the Column, we were able to get a nice view into Warrenton. Unfortunately, there was a heavy fog over downtown and looking into Washington. We walked up the 100+ spiral staircase to the top of the column, and hung out up there for awhile, hoping that the fog would eventually go away…but no such luck. It was still cool being up there though!
Astoria Column in the Morning
After we made our way back down, we drove downtown to walk around there for awhile. We were excited to have some fish n chips from this food truck that Norina had gone to before and is really good. We had to wait until 11 for it to open though, so killed some time walking on the riverfront for a little before heading over. Sadly, neither Yelp or Google told us that there were closed on Sundays during the winter. So we searched around for another place and settled on a small place in town with pretty good reviews, and got some fish n chips there. It was alright – much more chips than fish though unfortunately.
After lunch, we just walked all around downtown, stopping by different points of interest along the way – the Flavel House, Oregon Film Museum, and of course the Astoria-Megler Bridge…which we took A LOT of pictures of! It wound up being a decent amount of walking around…and as we were making our way back to the car, it was starting to get pretty chilly, so we kept stopping in different shops on the way back – mostly to warm ourselves up some. Oh, and the Blazers scored 100 the night before, so we stopped in a McDonalds for some more free nuggets!
Flavel House
Random Astoria
Port of Astoria
Astoria-Megler Bridge
Once we made our way back to the car, we decided to drive up a few miles to the pier where all of the seals were. We actually could hear them when we were hiking earlier in the morning. We weren’t able to see the seals up close though, because the dock was closed for some safety reasons. We could only see them from a far…and since all they really do is just lay there on top of each other, it wasn’t too exciting.
From here, we drove out to Warrenton to check out Fort Stevens State Park. I’d seen lots of pictures of the shipwreck there, and it seemed pretty cool, but it was even better in person, with that sun shining behind it in the background. Sunset must be super pretty there, but we were a few hours too early for that, and weren’t about to stay around for it. We did stay around there for awhile…taking pictures from all different angles, climbing around inside, and watching people run away whenever the water came up the shore. We also stopped by Battery Russell in the Park, which used to be manned by the military, as a place to defend the Columbia River. It was pretty neat to see most it all still in tact and know that it was way back in the early 1900s.
Fort Stevens
Wreck of Peter Iredale
When we got back home, the sun was just starting to set, and Imelda had dinner ready for us again! This time, fresh crabs! While we worked to crack open the crab shells, I left my phone in the windowsill to time-lapse the sunset. It took a lot of work to get all of that crab meat out…but it was really good!! We couldn’t have asked for a better meal to end off the weekend, or a better host! It was a short trip, but we were able to pack a lot in, and can’t wait to go back again!
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The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 