Daily Archives: June 22, 2011
Goonies and Eagles . . .
After the usual coffee and toasted bagels at 10, Jan heated up the last of Baldy’s BBQ about noon, and once again we enjoyed some great BBQ. Too bad that’s the last of it.
About 2 pm we headed out with Nick and Terry Russell to do some sightseeing in the area. We first drove north up through Long Beach for a while and then turned around and headed back south across Nick’s favorite bridge to Astoria.
After driving around for a while, Nick directed us to a hill overlooking the city that held the Astoria Column.
Built in 1924 by The Great Northern Railway and Vincent Astor, great grandson of John Jacob Astor, who founded Astoria. (Astor, Astoria, get it?). Founded in 1811, Astoria is the oldest settlement west of the Rockies, and, although John Jacob Astor is said to have founded the city, another source says he never visited here. Nick and I figured he had ‘people’ to found things for him.
The murals wrapped around the column depict 14 significant events in the settlement of Oregon, including Lewis and Clark, and the settling of Astoria.
The Astoria Column is 125 feet high, and it’s 164 steps to the top. Terry and I know every one of those steps, because we climbed it. Two unnamed wussies stayed on the ground. That’s Nick (I mean, a ‘wuss’) masquerading as a little blue dot in the middle of this photo.
But the climb was worth it just for the views.
Coming back down the hill we drove up and down some of the residential streets checking out the many neat houses.
Last year we saw a lot of these ‘painted ladies’ in San Francisco, too.
While not a ‘painted lady’ as such, this house is famous because it was used in the 1985 movie, “The Goonies’, which was filmed. Other movies filmed in the area were ‘Overboard’, ‘Short Circuit’, ‘Kindergarten Cop’, and a number of others.
Now this place might have been used to film ‘The Addams Family’. I certainly wouldn’t want to live next door to it.
Leaving Astoria proper, we drove east on US-101 looking for the Twilight Eagle Habitat. Following the signs we ended up at this overlook on the Columbia River delta area. Eagles or no eagles, the view was great.
We did see one bird high overhead, but too far away to identify by eye.
But I took a photo anyway. And, as it turns out, it was a Bald Eagle, as you can tell from the enlargement below.
Finally we headed back to Long Beach and on up the highway to Los Compadres, a well-recommended Mexican restaurant. We had a good meal, and a great time getting back together with Nick and Terry.
More tomorrow . . .
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Thought for the Day:
Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant…better left unstirred. – PG Wodehouse
dsaf
