First things first, we are off to Astoria this weekend with our friends Cat and John. Cat and John found out yesterday that their adoption of a baby from China has gone through. They were told the name of the child, a 9 month old girl, and given the go ahead to travel to China to pick her up. It will be about 6 to 8 weeks for them to get all the arrangements in place and to travel. I can imagine they are very happy about all this.
On a more trivial matter, I’m trying out the new method of blogging while on the road. I’m using an old hp 200lx to do the first pass entry. When we return, I’ll pull the data card; transfer the entries to the travel blog and post. All this in an attempt to keep the days events fresh while we blog.
On even more trivial grounds, I need to get a new pack before we go off to Europe. My current camera bag is getting stuffed with binoculars and the palmtop let alone the camera and all the accessories
After driving to Astoria, we had lunch at a local pub. Cat propped the picture of their baby girl up on a menu stand and we ate. Both Cat and John are playing with ways to say “our baby girl” or “my daughter”. Of course Nadya and I help.
We then had a nice stroll over to the Columbia River Maritime Museum where we took the obligatory picture at the anchor.
The museum is very good and highly recommended. Go in and see the tugboat/towboat exhibit but be careful of the areas outlined with yellow caution tape. You could trip and hurt your ankle. The museum includes the lightship Columbia which is anchored outside and we had a good time touring that as well.
After the museum we registered at our bed and breakfast and took a nap. The rooms all have names, and while ours is the peaceful cloud nine, Cat and John’s is “little hummers.” Hear that, Jeannine?
After naps we drove up to the Astoria column, which is the largest hand painted monolithic concrete column west of the Mississippi built on a Tuesday. The view was fabulous, even from the base – since Nadya was having problems standing and walking (hey, it was windy!) we didn’t venture up the spiral staircase. But we did thank Lewis and Clark for persevering. Due to rough weather it took the expedition 10 days to go the last 16 miles to the pacific. Clark wrote in his diary “we have finally seen the ocean although it has not been pacific a single day we have been here.”
After a brief stop at a local gallery show, we headed to the silver salmon for dinner and a toast to baby girl Anderson. Yum. Jim made the waitress spill the sauce on her tie, without even touching her. Get the bananas foster!
