April 6, Astoria and Vancouver: Spring comes to Oregon and Washington

This morning I planted seven or eight more plants that I got at Freddy's last night. During the process of planting, I realized I should have checked out one of my classmates' nurseries, but we get into such ruts sometimes that when I think plants here in Astoria, I think "Fred Meyer." I'm not sure where their nursery is, but when I find it, I'll post about it. I know they care so much for their plants, it would make me happy to buy from them. I do still have the area to the left to deal with - the shaggy grass you can just see outside of the rock border. This pretty much completes the area inside the rocks. I hope they grow well this summer and turn the flowerbed into a riot of color. If not, I'll probably keep planting things, because that's what I want. My three sage plants in this bed survived the winter, and I've already seen that while the dusty gray kitchen sage seems to grow faster, it gets gray and leggy and sort of dead-looking, while the purple sage is still beautiful, if smaller. I love purple sage and would have filled the garden with it, except I'd like bright colors, too.

After fixing up the garden, I took off for Portland, where I was meeting Lee so we could go to the J.J. Cale concert at the Aladdin Theater. Since I guessed (correctly) that they wouldn't let you take photos inside, I didn't take my camera out of the car, and I have no pix of it, though someday I'd like to take some of the outside. Let me just say that J.J. Cale and his band were incredible, much better than I'd heard on his recordings, although I haven't listened to the latest live recordings. So that's how we ended the evening, but when we first arrived, we found our motel, then went across the bridge to Vancouver, Washington. Beaches is a restaurant on the river that we enjoy, and we had lunch there before chilling in the park nearby. I took the sailboat photos just above and below from Beaches. The Columbia River separates the two cities in the process of dividing Washington from Oregon. I took all of the following photos from the Washington side, and all but these two sailboat pix from "Old Apple Tree Park" near the I-5 Bridge.

It looks like a lake, but it's the Columbia River. Some days you see sailboats up here. Down our way, near the mouth of the river, that's pretty rare.

It was a beautiful day. The weekend had been the first really nice weather in a long time. It wasn't hot, but it was sort of warm. Some people were in t-shirts, and I alternated: sweatshirt/t-shirt, maybe even my jacket, depending on the shade and the breeze. It was fairly calm, and there were lots of flowering and blossoming things just getting into the Spring mood.

I like crows. I liked watching them in the trees. We put blankets on the grass and napped and watched things, and didn't do much else.

Some people were more industrious. They were chasing a ball of some kind. I was so relaxed, I don't even remember what they were playing. A path goes through the park along the riverfront.

Portland/Vancouver have a number of picturesque bridges, and this is one of them. I thought they all had interesting names, but this one seems only to be called "The I-5 Bridge," or "Interstate Bridge," and it's notable for having the only stoplight on I-5 between Canada and Mexico. The light is to warn cars that they have to stop when the lift goes up to let ships through.

Here's another shot of the bridge showing more of the park where we were relaxing. It seems this bridge, built in 1917 and subsequently enlarged, is now so outdated that bottlenecks are common. It was one-way until 1956, when they added southbound traffic. They have a plan to build a huge bridge to replace it. My first thought when I saw the artist's rendering is just how ugly it would be. It seems there are a lot more problems than that. I hate seeing beautiful old landmarks fall into the dustbin, as I've already seen in my few (eight) years in Astoria, and this one may not even accomplish anything.

Back to the park: From our spot on the grass, we could watch the trains passing. I probably should have gotten up and walked over nearer the tracks to get a good photo, but as I said, it was just a lazy day. I needed that.

Lee especially likes trains, and so I do. If he's a train freak, I'm at least a train admirer. I like taking photos of them, too. The wheels look pretty cool if you click on the photo.

And here's another engine on the back. I like that I can see it through the new growth on the trees. The colors are neat.

When we finally got up, we ambled down closer to the river. I like that this display describes some history of the Columbia. If you click on the picture, you can read it.

And here's a fishing boat of some type going upriver. It's Spring salmon season.

Here we've walked closer to the bridge, and you can see what the water's edge looks like with the park on the bluff above it.

And another shot of the I-5 bridge with one of the lifts visible. Someone posted a beautiful picture of this bridge on Panoramio.

Salmon fountain and bell tower, Vancouver, Washington

It was raining in Vancouver. What else is new? Mr. Salmon has a spider in his mouth. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, I'm sure you can see the small spider, but probably not its web.

It's a pretty park. What more is there to say? Oh! Look on top of the bell tower. It's another salmon.

A conference in Vancouver, Washington

This is my brother, Gary. No, he's not in jail. Nor is he in the zoo. Actually, the bars reminded me of the back area of a zoo, where the keepers work near the animals but need protection - which is why I took it. I've enjoyed going behind the scenes at various zoos in my life. But in this case, it's only the parking garage in downtown Vancouver, Washington. Gary and I attended a NutraMetrix conference there for three days from October 3 to 5. I took these pix on the 4th. It was educational and enjoyable - some parts were spectacular. I just hate sitting in a room like that for so long.

Here's the Hilton, where the conference was held.

This is the park across the street from the Hilton. A couple of years ago, Lee and I saw Bo Diddley play a concert there. It was totally memorable. What a master he was! I took more pix of the salmon bell tower, which was fun. I love whimsical public sculptures and fountains and such, and a lot of the ones around here have salmon in them.

Above is one of the several lecture rooms we used at the Hilton. This is during break, of course. The rooms were packed.

Across the street from the Hilton. I don't know what the building is, but it's fun to look at and I love the sky. I don't love the power lines. I know it's expensive for cities, but if they're going to make nice things to look at, could we ditch the obstacles? Thanks.

Nice colors - again, across the street from the Hilton (above and below). Architectural detail again. Some of my favorite things to look at.

Oct 3: Nutraceutical Training in Vancouver: My Badge

Here's the badge. Photos to follow when I get around to it. This was a lot of info to cram into one's head in a short period of time, and a lot of sitting on one's butt without much moving around. I found it not very relaxing, and it probably would have been better if I hadn't been sitting in front of the computer for so many hours week after week already. I did learn a lot, I got a few good reference books and a manual, and the best part was, I got to hang out with Gary for a few days, as he was also taking the class.

July 8: Scenes on the river - Astoria, Oregon, 2001

Sunday Market. A couple of streets shut down and you can listen to music, have food from vendors, and browse hand-made products and hand-grown produce. It's laid back and lazy, and a great place to go on a sunny day.

My apartment is taking shape, things are getting put away. The book shelf is filling up, and altogether it's still pretty neat (either meaning).

I thought I'd brighten up the room with a salmon-colored mattress cover. It's serving as a couch right now. The bed is out of the photo on the right. That white furry fabric may someday be pillows. Both are out of keeping with my usual choices, but this is fun.

You can't see the mini mirrors, but the navy blue square on the door is Indian mirrored fabric. Supposedly if you have a front door and back door facing each other, you should put something reflective on the door so the energy flow stays put. What I like about these Feng shui solutions is, they usually feel right, look right, or something. I wouldn't keep doing it if it only felt superstitious.

Here's the front door. The hall is filling up. What a great space to put books and things so my other rooms can feel spacious. On the right are two ceramic tapirs made by Audrey Jakab for the tapir gift shop. Yeah, they all made it here without breaking.

The office, too, is coming together. And I'm learning things. I bought the copier in the lower right when I was in Colorado. Once I got here, the paper started sticking and jamming, and nothing that had worked in Palisade to keep it going worked very well in Astoria. I had Mike come out from a local store and he told me the copier itself (a Konica) didn't work well in damp climates, but worked fine in dry. I mean, who knew? Who would guess that? Not good.

I like this funky photo. It makes the river look as wide and limitless as it feels. It's four miles wide right here. I took this from the Sixth Street viewing platform.

All of the rest of the pix in this post were also take from the platform or near the base of it. Here's a shot looking up river with some of Astoria's houses visible on the hillside. The waterfront is used for many things now. These are office buildings nearby. I'm not sure what the building further back is. It may still have something to do with fish.

The bump to the right of the ships is the peninsula of Tongue Point.

That's Sixth Street, as seen from the platform.

I love this. It needs music or something. The pilot boat is racing out to do its thing with the ship - exchange pilots for the trip across the bar, which is incredibly dangerous to navigate if you don't know what you're doing. It has more impact if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Nice! This ship is making its way up the river. I love the sparkles.

June 28: The view from my apartment

Here's a ship passing on the river in late afternoon light. The hills on the other side of the river are Washington. This was taken from my back deck (the fire escape, but spacious enough for several chairs, potted plants, etc.). I still can't believe I have this. There are a few steps up from my back door to this landing, and then a few more steps from the landing to the apartment above me. There are four landings for five apartments, so somebody technically doesn't get one. The people in my apartment before me seem to have used the bottom landing, so I've taken it over. This works for me, and I rationalize because (unbelievably to me) the guy in one of the apartments said he'd never been onto the landing in the several years he's been here! It's hard to believe, but at least those who want a deck (landing) will get a private one.

You can also walk down the stairs into the yard. It's not a yard that gets used much, but I like it, and I like the large bushes that grow here. One of the first days in my apartment, I saw a raccoon outside my window. How cool is that? The welcoming committee had made me feel very welcome, indeed. It would be kinda nice if you could just walk down to the water, but you have to go around a block or so to get there.

This is also taken from my deck looking northeast (approximately) toward town. The spit of land you can see is Tongue Point. The hills across the river are Washington.

Yikes! This is looking down from my landing. I'm still reveling in the lush green after living in the desert for so long. The blue building is the back of one of the two motels just below me on the hill.