July 6: Being tourists in Astoria

When my brother and Beth came up from Cottage Grove for the day, the weather turned out to be much nicer than it had been for the celebration on the 4th. We did some of the tourist things. I'd learned enough to show them a few places, and we did some things I hadn't done before, either. Our first trip was out to the beach to see the wreck of the Peter Iredale - scenic and compelling as always.

This is a part of the ship further back from the bow. It's probably the mainmast housing.

Next we went up to see the Astoria Column with its spectacular view over the Columbia River and surrounding countryside.

I love the purple foxgloves, and I still can't get over the amazing array of green things and shades of green in Oregon.

The column shows the history of our area in pictures and words.

It sure does climb way up there into the sky. There's a door at the bottom, and you can walk all the way up the spiral staircase.

In case you wonder where you are, there's a bronze map at the base of the column.

I wonder what's in here. Maybe some floppy disks? I hope there will be a way to read them. Maybe some 35mm film capsules?

Here's the view on the other side of the column from the river. The tallest mountain on the left is called Saddle Mountain. It has lots fo bumps and . . . a saddle :) That's Youngs River, and no, they don't use an apostrophe.

Here we are down by the river again, just west of the Maritime Museum. The old pilings and foundation are picturesque, and sometimes there are ships in the dock.

The Columbia Light Ship is in the dock permanently. The Queen of the West (I think that's the name) is a paddlewheel boat that comes down the Columbia just this far bringing tourists.

They're expanding the museum. See the trolley tracks in the foreground? You can ride for one dollar, and that's what we're going to do.

This is one of the sights out the trolley window - the old cannery building called "Big Red." It's privately owned. You can't go through it - darn! I can only imagine!

I don't know the guy. I thought the inside of the old refurbished trolley was pretty cool. And when you get to the end of the line, the seats can be flipped so everyone is once again facing the way the trolley is moving. I like that!

Here's another pic of the inside of the trolley. It was wonderful having Gary and Beth come visit. Why is it that I never take photos of people? I guess it's because I don't like being the subject myself.

Fourth of July bash at Doc's on 12th

I liked this image, so I snapped it. I'd decided to walk down to Doc's on 12th Street to mingle a little. I'd been doing my best to talk to people although I'm not very outgoing by nature. It had become a survival tactic here where I didn't know anyone. This window is on the corner of Marine Drive and 11th Street near the entrance to the Columbian Theatre.

The building really is on one of the docks. The "Doc's on 12th" name probably comes from the fact that there are dentists and other offices on the top floor. There's now a wonderful restaurant called Baked Alaska on the lower floor, where Kate and I had our farewell dinner. I had a couple of other pics of the river showing what an overcast and dreary day this is for a 4th celebration, but the photos were so bad I didn't use them. Here in the dark foreground you can see old pilings. You'd think the 4th would be a sunny, warm day. They were like that growing up in Southern California and later living in Colorado. In Santa Barbara, I remember a number of 4ths that were cloudy and even fog-bound and drizzly. Here in Astoria, my guess is it can be anything.

Bright colors on the docks. The event is open to all.

The beer garden is cordoned off with bright orange barricades.

I'm not sure which local band this is. I'll have to ask Kathy.

I moved the new green shelf temporarily to get a photo of what it was replacing. This black thing was not intended to look like a place of worship or sacrifice, but it consisted of some of my still-full bankers' boxes of stuff from the move. I was trying to (for once) have uncluttered living space. How long would that last?

. . . and in my attempt to unclutter, some things just had to go. In 1985, I'd made this collage painting in Santa Barbara of photos I'd taken on the beach and printed in my bathroom darkroom. The monster-looking thing was the cartilaginous skeleton of a nurse shark or basking shark or something like that. The glob is a pile of seaweed. I'd made the stretcher bars out of found wood (uneven in size and shape, and now broken, too). The edges of the prints were curling. I did my thing: take a photo and dump the original. Bye bye. Another piece of my life was gone (I have trouble throwing things out), but I'd saved a couple of pictures of it for the memory book.

July 3: Green shelf

Pictures like this always look productive to me. I had agonized, shopped, and then spent some money on a nice wooden shelf. It was already made, but not painted, and for some reason I had a visual image of the color it should be. There was no paint in the store remotely resembling this green, so asked for the nearest color and the guy said he'd customize it for me, but of course I couldn't get my money back. I didn't expect to. He'd add more black and I'd say it wasn't enough. He couldn't believe I wanted more and more black, but he accommodated, and I finally got what I was looking for. I'm good with color mixing, and in fact, in high school I kept getting passes out of various classes to match colors for a Christmas project the art class was doing. I'd made the original design and apparently was the only one who could figure out how to get the colors mixed right to match when we painted it as a large backdrop. Anyway, mixing paint and matching colors is one of my talents. I wish I could paint as well as I can come up with the colors. Well, maybe soon I'll get back into it. I also like the collaged tapir box there on the coffee table. The table was one of the first things Marco and I bought in Colorado when we moved there with almost no furniture. My former landlady, Jane, gave me the Laurel Burch cat mug.

July 2: Fort Astoria and the birthplace of Ranald MacDonald

This modern monument to Fort Astoria occupies a lot at the corner of 15th Street and Exchange Avenue in Astoria, Oregon. It's located a block away on Google Earth. I don't know if they know something about the original location, but the address I just gave is where I took this photo. This scene is one of those unexpected things I'm starting to expect from Astoria.

Here's another view of Fort Astoria with the wonderful big tree that grows there.

Here's some history. You can read it better if you click on the photo. On the right of the photo you can see a bit of blue and get some idea that we're already high above the river. Streets go alphabetically from the river up the steep hill. Astor doesn't run the length of town, but it can be found in some areas near the post office. Bond street is where my apartment is on the other side of town. Like Astor, it's cut off near the post office. Commercial is the main drag through downtown, then it feeds into Marine Drive, which is the main highway running into town from both east and west, also known as Highway 30. Marine Drive is the only one in this part of town that's not in alphabetical order. Here on the hill at Fort Astoria we're on Exchange Street - essentially one flat block and two steep blocks from the river (Marine Drive, Duane and Exchange), since Astor and Bond don't make it to this end of town.

This was a surprise, too. I'd never heard of Ranald MacDonald (and of course, it's funny because we all picture the clown, Ronald McDonald), although people say the original Ranald deserves a bigger place in history than he's been able to carve out so far. It would seem so. Maybe now that we're all using the Internet, people will learn more about him. You can read the English-language description on this side of the plaque by clicking the image. There's a Japanese version on the back. Ranald was half Scottish and half Chinook Indian, but he made his mark by travelling to Japan. This park marks his birthplace. Above is a page that links to more links.

Here's the location and setting of the small park. What was I saying about power lines. It's too bad. They always seem to be in the way here, but the city doesn't have the money to bury them. Maybe someday when a lot of other things are taken care of, it will.

July 1: Another beautiful day in Astoria and views of the town

Quite a variety of ships pass my apartment on the river. It's interesting to see the shapes and colors.

There's quite a lot of "clutter" between my deck and the bridge, but it's still completely awesome. I don't know what the tent-thing is. It must be for storage for the motel.

Here's looking the other way, somewhat northeast, I think. I'd like to wish away that condo, but for the people living there, the view is fantastic. I'd like to see sometime. I will say that Astoria has left most of the actual waterfront open for the public in that the River Walk goes the whole length of town. Sometimes the view from the walk is blocked, but much of it is open.

I love this part about the apartment: the yard and forest patch. There used to be a twin building in the grassy area, but it burned down about 10 years ago. The story is, the owner took the insurance money and refurbished the remaining building, making 10 nice apartments where there had been quite a number of small run-down ones. The arsonist was finally caught, and turned out to be the son of the fire chief. Interestingly, the spate of fires that had plagued Astoria came to an end.

Here's looking down the other side from my deck. The window is my office window. The stairs go down from the deck to my back door, then down on the left to the yard. The stairs furthest left go all the way up to the street, so I can enter by my front or back door. The manager says they'll be painting the place soon. Things do get wet and mossy here on the north sides of buildings. Inside everything is clean and dry, and Erby does a beautiful job of keeping this building in good shape, which is a relief after what I saw when checking out apartments to rent. There's greenery on the hill that slopes down from the manager's house next door, large bushes between the back of the apartments and the motels further down the slope, and the back yard area and forest patch in the picture above. This is why we get quite a few animals here.

I brought the purple book shelf from Colorado and bought the computer desk after I got here. The work space is taking shape. The light patches to the left come from the window onto the river that you can see in the photo above.