Back to Astoria

Hola Amigo's and Amigoette's......

What'd ya'll do today? We rode back up to Astoria to go back to FredMeyer's to swap out a bad memory stick for the camera. Decided to head over the Goonie house to get a pic for Michael. Can't get to the Goonie house these days, although it's still here. It's a private residence and I guess they'd like to keep it somewhat private....

Found something infinitely more interesting though.....

These are residents of the East Mooring Docks on the Astoria Waterfront......

Forrest was freakin' when he heard them. Like the Buffalo, he wanted to go play with the funny critters.

A bit of history, Astoria claims to be the oldest US city west of the Rockies. These guys would probably be the oldest resident's of this city.

It's a whole nest of 'em too.

Yep, those are brands you see on some of them. They are wild, but apparently Fish & Wildlife likes to keep tabs on 'em so they brand them.

You could hear from four blocks away. Neatern' grits!



Wanted to get some video with the voices, but it was raining. Will be going back before we depart the area though so we can do that very thing. They are very vocal and very playful with each other.







Ok, here's some more history for the area. Warrenton, just south of Astoria, I would actually call it a suburb, has Fort Stevens and Fort Stevens state park. Fort Stevens is the only place in the Contenintal US that was attacked in WWII. A Jap sub fired 17 rounds at the Fort. There was no significant damage and no injuries. The Fort declined to return fire. It was also the last US whaling port.

Also, the Clatsop and Tillamook Indian tribes are native to this area. They are one of the very few tribes that were never "removed" from their ancestral lands and still live on them today.

The bays in this area produce some damn fine Oysters, but the locals are not big fans of raw seafood so it's hard to get them on the half shell. I have found a couple places that have though. Unlike the gulf oysters, these are very sweet and have very little salty taste. They do have some slap ya mama good steamers though, both Mussell's and Clams. And the Razor clams, steamed WILL make ya slap ya mama!

Wal-Mart is not well liked out here either. They do have Costco's, and their version of Wal-Mart is an outfit called FredMeyer's. Karen found out that Kroger's owns the Fred's.

Generally, August and September here in Oregon are the dry months and very warm. Along the coast this year it has been both wet and cold. I'm digging the cold, but could do without SOME of the wet. Wet here ain't always a bad thing. You can still do stuff when it rains here.

Oregon has one of the BEST state park systems in the country. They take pride in their parks and it shows. We plan to use the parks that have campgrounds in them as much as possible as we head further down the coast. Most of them have full hook ups so staying a week or more is not a big deal in them. They stayed booked during the summer but after Labor day become more available without reservations. We are counting on that....

I knew we would like the coast here just based on what I had seen from time to time. Turns out the state has some pretty decent folks in it too. Most are friendly and helpful and seem like "country folks" used to be back home. Have managed to stay out of the "big city's" though so that might not be true with all of them.

Anyhoo, time to roll out the bedroll. Nighty night....