Thursday we cached around the Astoria and Fort Stevens area. We were not real successful, only 3 caches all day. Tom kept reminding me we were not going to make our goal of 43 if we did not do a better job. Our excuse was we did not have our DeLorme PN-40 working. I had contacted DeLorme to help me out, but they did not get back to me until too late to cache with it. So we were using Tom's Garmin, my Palm Pre on the internet and the TomTom. NOT an easy way to get all the information needed to get the caches. Our first cache of the day was only about a mile from our campground at Fort Stevens State Park. This was a Memorial commemorating the one and only shell to to hit on the US mainland since the War of 1812. The cache was called June 21, 1942, which is the day the shell was fired from a Japanese Submarine and hit about 3 miles from Fort Stevens. The guns at Fort Stevens were ordered NOT to fire back, but the mines along the Columbia were increased.
The next cache was placed in a local cemetery. Unfortunately it was a puzzle cache and I did not notice this minor detail so we did not find it. We did see many interesting Civil War grave markers. Who would have thought there would be Civil War veterans buried in Oregon. They fought in the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. We then saw the cutest family of Canadian geese, dad, mom, and 4 babies. They were learning to swim, splashing, diving, just having fun.
We then tried to get a cache that was deep in the woods. It was described as having to go over and under brush. The first part of the trail was not too bad, but when we were just 90 feet from the cache there was a large, diameter 4', downed tree across the way into the very heavy brush. We decided that my knee would not make it and Tom would probably bleed to death scrambling over that tree since he was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt that day. We were also attacked by mosquitoes as large as B-52 bombers. Fortunately, we had sprayed with repellent earlier. We were successful with 2 other caches. The ranger told us of the hurricane winds in 2007 that blew down so many trees.
After such a very busy day we decided to reward ourselves to a special dinner. We drove into Astoria for a delicious fish dinner with a view of the spectacular Astoria bridge to Washington.
Friday morning we were surprised by an early phone call from our dear friends, Dennis & Jill Curtin. They are traveling on the east coast so our 7:30 was their 10:30. We were so happy they are enjoying the RV lifestyle. We decided that we could not waste this beautiful sunny day in Oregon. We understand this does not happen very often.We drove to the beach to see the wreck of the Peter Iredale. About 30 years ago we visited this wreck on a camping trip with the kids. what is left of it, was in the sand. The tide was so low we could have walked a half a mile out to the water. There was also a huge amount of driftwood that had washed up on the beach.
We have been to Fort Stevens and Astoria several times, but have never driven out on the Jetty at the mouth of the Columbia River. It is just about a 3 mile drive with no traffic other than a few bicycles. When we got to the furthest point on the Jetty we found the huge parking lot was completely empty except for one other car and ours.
We walked out to the wilkdlife blind and spotted what remained of a long trestle and discovered the bay was named Trestle Bay. We later learned this was a railroad line that was used to transport the mines from the Fort to the mouth of the Columbia.
We drove to the part of Jetty which is the furthest point north west in Oregon. What a beautiful day to see this part of the country. These are a few pictures. I don't think we will see sunshine like this for a long time.
To make this perfect day, the first 72 degree day this year, sunshine, & clear skies, even better, we found a cool cache. The hint was “what is a clay pipe doing up here?”.
We got our Fort Clatsop fix. We just love everything about the Corp of Discovery’s Adventure. We have been to Harper’s Ferry where Lewis bought guns, Cahokia where they bought supplies before leaving, Camp Dubois where they left the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi and St Charles where they started their trip. We love the museum under the Arch in St. Louis. Standing where this amazing unequaled exploration happened always inspires us.
It was getting late in the day so we did the drive through tour of Fort Stevens. Normally this would take 2 hours walking. We did it in 25 minutes stopping to read the information on the tour guide. Then it was home, Skyping Julie’s 19th casino birthday party and a home made spaghetti dinner complete with salad and garlic bread. Like sunshine in Oregon this does not happen very often.
On the Road Again, Caching Places That We’ve Never Been… Thanks for joining us.
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad our Oregon weather has been kind to you and Tom. It is days like you are experiencing is why we Oregonians live here. Even though every day is not like this, when it is, it makes it all worth while to live here. We can hardly wait until we can live at the coast all the time...for the great sunny days and the wild hurricane type storms!