Astoria, Or

Thursday was overcast and in the afternoon we even got some drizzle, but that is why it is so beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest. We drove to Astoria and of course when you go to Astoria you need to drive across the Astoria-Megler Bridge to Washington. This bridge is truly a wonder.

Astoria Megler Bridge

The bridge spans 4.1 miles across the Columbia River. On the Oregon side it raises 197 feet above the water to allow ships to pass under it and move up the Columbia River. It then lovers down to just above water level for the rest of the way to Washington. In the below picture you can see how it drops down and stays level to  the river.

Bridge

Here we are entering the tall bridge span. They are working on the bridge so it goes down to one lane here.

Tall Span

Dropping down for the ride into Washington.

Workers on the Bridge

We made it to Washington!

Welcome to Washington

We took this picture from the Washington side.

Washington Span

We are getting ready to go up the hill back into Oregon. I like this picture that Patty took. 

Back to Oregon

The best view in Astoria is the Astoria Column. We have been there twice before. Once with Barry and Suzie Miller, and once with Scott and Terri. It never get's old.

You can see the column at the top of the hill.

Column in the center of the picture

First you need to drive up the hill to the column.

Steep streets of Astoria

The road to the column is beautiful. 

Road to Astoria Column

The column is high on the hill and has great views of all of Astoria.

Astoria Column

 Looking up the column at all 164 steps!

Staircase

Lets get started!

Starting up the spiral staircase!

Someone offered to take a picture of us at the top. You can really see how long the bridge is.

See we made it!

The bridge you see in this picture is a draw bridge.

 We then went down to the boardwalk and went to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. It was $12.00 per person but well worth it.

Museum

This U.S. Coast Guard rescue boat was retired after 19 years of service. It is self righting and self bailing. It overturned several times, and even flipped head over heals before. It just kept on working. Amazing!

Rescue boat

This is the bridge from the USS Knapp. It was placed here whole before the museum building was built. They actually built the museum around it.

USS Knapp

The Columbia Lightship is part of the museum. You show your tickets and you can tour the lightship. A lightship is a ship that is placed somewhere that a lighthouse is not feasible. They anchor it and light up a sandbar or harbor or some navigable area.

Columbia Lightship

The crews of the lightship would work 6 weeks on and 3 weeks off. That gave crew members that lived in California a chance to be with family.

Lightship Tour

After the museum we did some shopping in Warrenton which is about 11 miles from our campground. They have a Costco and a Fred Meyers. 


After the Astoria Column the Jacuzzi felt good. 


We hope you enjoyed following along with us.
God Bless,
Brian and Patty

Exploring Seaside

When we came in Monday night we wanted to go find some dinner. We asked the ranger at the gate for a suggestion and he said there was a dive called the Relief Pitcher Tavern that made great burgers just outside of town.
We checked on Trip Adviser and it had 12 out of 12 really good reviews. We decided to go and check it out.

Relief Pitcher Tavern

 The picture looks kinda cute, but trust me it was a real DIVE bar, but we decided to trust the reviews we had and boy are we glad we did.
Patty had the tuna steak sandwich with hand cut seasoned fries. I had a pastrami cheese burger with home made cole slaw. I also had sun tea they make there.
The food was Awesome and the prices were right! The waitress was old fashion bar and grill nice! It's usually a good idea to ask locals for suggestions!

Tuesday we ventured downtown. Seaside is where Lewis and Clark ended their trek. They also had a salt works here for preserves and seasoning from the salt water.

Salt Works

Seaside honors Lewis and Clark at the end of Broadway Ave. with a sign and a statue where the Lewis and Clark trail ends. There is a turn-around here.

End of the Trail Sign

To the right of the sign you can see the base of the statue.

End of the Trail to commemorate Lewis and Clark

This picture is standing in front of the statue looking down Broadway. This is the main 'tourist' shopping street. Behind me is the turn-around.

Broadway Ave.

There is a 1 1/2 mile boardwalk in Seaside. They also have an aquarium. You can see a yellow sign to the right on the boardwalk. That is the Seaside Aquarium. We probably won't go to it, because we went to it with Crystal and Matthew years ago. We seem to remember that it is more geared towards kids, more hands on.

Seaside Boardwalk

Sometimes Patty cannot help herself and has to take a picture of things. This is one of them!

Patty's picture!

There were no less then 6 Ice Cream and candy stores on Broadway Ave. We did give in and shared a bowl of ice cream at Zingers Ice Cream. They make their own ice cream on the premises. It is very rich and GOOD! But not to worry, we are still doing good with the weight loss. Patty is down 10 lbs. and I am down 14 lbs.!
Here is a picture of the beach at the end of Broadway Ave.

Seaside beach

 Every time we go into town we need to cross the Neawanna Creek. At home this would be considered a river! Anyway there are bridges all over town.

Neawanna Creek

We headed North to Gearhart to see if there was anything there. Small little town. Maybe a little more money then in Seaside. We drove through these homes to get beach access.

Gearhart Homes

In Gearhart you can drive out onto the beach. In Oregon anytime when you can legally drive on the beach it is considered an Oregon highway.

Driving on the beach

We headed back home and barbecued hamburger.

Brian BBQ

We ate dinner and went to the pool and Jacuzzi again. At 10:00 pm there was still some light coming from the west. Strange! It would be hard to put kids to bed early during the summer here!

Dinner's ready!

Wednesday will be a work day, laundry and stuff, so we probably won't update for a few days.

Love you all!
Brian and Patty

We got to Seaside, Oregon

We left Bend, Oregon Monday morning about 9:30 for Seaside, Oregon. The trip was about 270 miles. We took Highway 20 out of Bend towards Sisters and Salem.

Highway 20

We are always a little concerned when we take highways instead of freeways because of low tunnels and overpasses, and because highways can become windy and steep two lane roads. The 5th wheel is almost 14' tall, so when we see tall 18 wheelers coming towards us in the opposite direction it does ease us somewhat. There was one tunnel and the heights was not listed, but there were trucks coming through from the other side.

We had been told by Matt and Joanne to get to Sisters, but one week was just not enough time in Bend and we did not get a chance to. We did drive through on our way to Seaside and it is a cute town.

The town of Sisters, Oregon

Because this is Oregon the weather was constantly changing during our drive, it would POUR rain down on us, and then it would be sunny for awhile. It was a tough drive, but beautiful the entire way!

Highway to Seaside

In the above picture you can see the cloud line in the road. It would also be like this with the rain. It would be pouring down, and then it would be dry. We finally made it to the 101 highway which is a two lane road not a major freeway here. As you can see it was raining when we arrived.

Almost there!

The campground is 1/2 mile off of the 101 right smack in the middle of Seaside. It is a great location. It is a Leisure Time that was bought by Thousand Trails.

Seaside Thousand Trails.

This is our campsite. We got on the 'North' side which is actually across the street from the sign above. It still has a gate that you need to put a code in to access. Their is an indoor pool, hot tub, and sauna on our side. In addition on our side all the sites are 50 amp. RV Bill had given us the heads up to come to this side. 

Large grassy sites.

 There are three time a day that the indoor pool is adult swim time. 8:00-9:30, 4:00-5:00, and finally 9:00-10:30 which is when the pool closes. We used it from 9:00-10:30 which was really nice.

That's it for tonight,
God Bless,
Brian and Patty

Day of Rest!

Today we went to Bend Westside Foursquare Church with Matt and Joanne.

The White family

We really liked their church. It really felt like we were at home! Matt told me that Pastor Steve recommended this church to them when they moved here. I can see why. The sanctuary is a little smaller then New Life, but the rest of the building is huge! God is really at work here! The kids ministry is first rate! There is even a slurpee machine for the teens. The kids are served pancakes during their services. Matthew likes that!
Worship was awesome as was Paster Ken's message. I appreciate Matt and Joanne inviting us! And again there were plenty of hugs to go around. We look forward to seeing you guys again either here or in Ventura!

After service We drove through downtown Bend. We had not been here before. They were having an event called "A Taste of Bend", but because tomorrow is travel day we just drove through.

Downtown Bend

On our way to the Fred Meyers to fill up with diesel we decided to take one last drive up the Pilot Butte. although it is out of focus we thought you would get a kick out of seeing the road on the Garmin..

GPS wIndy road

Here is one last picture of the mountains above Bend. This is truly a beautiful town!

from Pilot Butte

We have really enjoyed Bend and the Sunriver Thousand Trails preserve. Next time we visit we will stay at least two weeks. Tomorrow we are cutting across the state towards the coast and heading north to Seaside. We will be there for two weeks. We have been to Seaside with Scott and Terri and of course our kids. We will be thinking of you guys when we are there.

We will update when we get to Seaside...

God Bless you,
Brian and Patty

Lava River Cave

First let me show you around the campground like I have promised to do for the past week!

Here is the family lodge. Today is member appreciation day, so they had a free ice cream social. We of course took them up on their generosity.

Family Lodge

Just to the left of the family lodge is both the adult pool and the kids pool. The adult pool also has a hot tub.

Adult pool with hot tub in rear right

Here is the kids pool which is just the right of the adult pool. There is a separate fence around both pools. The pools are open until 10:00 pm.

Kids Pool

To the right of the family lodge is the Island which is connected by two foot bridges. You can see camping spots beneath the trees in the distance. There is a firepit for weinie roasts on the Island. The water is called the Oxbow. The picture is taken from one of the bridges.

The bridge

In the distance you can see some flags. This is the putt-putt golf and Frisbee golf courses. 

Golf

They have an area called The Town Square. They have a book repository where you can drop off books or take a book, they have a bbq restaurant, and of course the country store. They also have FAST internet... a first at Thousand Trails. I ran a speed test on it, and it was over 5 mps.

Town Square

There are cute facades in the Town Square. Above shows the Blacksmith. Below are some cute headstones.

Click on the picture to read the headstones

Here is the Country Store. They are really well stocked.

Country Store

Now it's time to go to the Lava River Cave. The cave is a Lava River from 15,000 years ago that formed the lava tube. It is over one mile long.

LRC sign

This path takes you to the entrance to the cave. It is in the middle of the parking lot. There are no lights so you need to make sure you have enough light for as far as you go. They do rent propane lanterns for $5.00 at the entrance. We took 2 flashlights each so we had backup.

Path to the entrance

Here is the entrance to the cave. There are stairs carved into the rock.

LRC entrance

 Patty starting into the cave. The steps are very wet which you can probably surmise from the moss over head.

Hang on tight!

Looking down the stairs into the cave.

Cave shot

These huge looking gemstones were actually ice crystals. We didn't expect to see those down there. The temperature keeps a pretty constant 44 degrees so I don't know that I understand why large Ice rocks are down there.

Ice Crystals

 It was so cold down in the cave and the steps were wet, so when the sun hit the stairs the steps would steam. it looked really cool in person, and I'm surprised it showed up in the picture!

Smoking steps!

We only went part way in the cave because we came to some more steps that were literally straight down! With my fear of heights and in the dark I decided it didn't make any sense. Patty was able to make it, but she said the grab rails were even low for her. We talked to some people that turned around soon after and they said that after the stairs it evened out and was just sand, but that it was just cave the rest of the way, and we had already seen the good stuff.
We decided to turn around and head back.

That's it for today,
God Bless.. We love you all!
Brian and Patty