Greetings!

Bill and I had a wonderful time on our little day trip over to the coast. We ended up going down the Washington side and crossed over to Oregon on a very long bridge that is officially called the Astoria-Megler Bridge. Before we did that, we stopped in to see the historic river town of Cathlamet, Washington. We went into a little coffee shop and had our morning brew and there were two other customers there and we ended up talking a bit with them as the man was telling of his trip to Europe which included Russia and on into Central Asia and Mongolia. We didn't get in on all of the details, but he was mightily impressed with Mongolia, which I found fascinating. The other customer, a lady, had visited S. Africa and had house sat in Hawaii.....these two world travelers in a little coffee shop in rinky dinky Cathlamet. Who would have thunk it?

We had lunch at Fort George Brewery and Public House in Astoria, and they have the best food. We sat outside on their deck, which is preferable to me as the inside is super noisy. The sun was shining, the sky was a piercing blue and the breeze turned into a pretty good wind by the time we finished lunch. We just had chicken strips and Bill had fries and I had cole slaw, but they do wonderful with their seasonings and it was just a really good lunch. I found out that Ft. Astoria, when it was the center for the fur trade in this area, was also called Ft. George, named after King George III. Hence the Fort George Brewery.

Then we looked around Astoria for a bit and went up to the Astoria Column to see the view. Then into town to look at the things that Bill was trying to find. It was something for his model trains, but he never did find exactly what he was looking for. It was a good excuse to get to the beach for the day, however. We went to Seaside, the next town south of Astoria and looked around there for a bit, which included finding the store with the train related items. Again no luck for him, but we enjoyed seeing the town anyway. We had gotten into fog by the time we got to Seaside, but it was still a mild day so that was okay. I loved this large mural which I saw when we were on our way to the car. It was a hard decision for me to decide which photo to feature, but I really love this image.

Then further south we went to Cannon Beach and there was more sun peaking around the fog bank, so it wasn't quite as dreary. Lots of people were on vacation and enjoying the beach. Lots of dogs, kids, kites, and more dogs.

Eventually it was time to come home and it didn't take long to hit the valley heat and the temperature slowly rose as we got closer to home. It was 90 degrees F at our house today...we were glad we were at the beach!

If you visit my Flickr album, you'll see some old buildings, an osprey nest, suicidal seagulls who were flying against the traffic on the bridge, but some were pretty close to the cars, a fawn that was in Astoria, Bill's lunch (ha), lovely views, the long, long bridge, The Column, a huge old house in Astoria that goes on the auction block next week and I'd love to have a couple million dollars to restore it to it's former glory, Seaside murals, a dog named Charlie Brown, Haystack Rock, silvery ocean photos, and much, much more. Whew! Take a look!

Okay...I think it's time for me to head for bed. A busy long day and it was very nice.

See ya later. Back to boring blips...sorry.