Aug 26, Astoria to Bend: On the Road

Thus begins a mini-adventure. Not that we expected anything to be difficult, but it would be the first time Laurel and I and Teagan would travel from Astoria to Bend to see Lee, aka Dad and Grandpa. First stop, Coffee Girl on Pier 39. I couldn't help but take a photo in this setting. I was a bit sorry to be leaving our wonderful weather and the coast I so love for dry and possibly hot parts inland.

My first glimpse of Teagan for the day was in the dark cave of the SUV. Dark because we're parked inside of the Pier 39 building.

Ooooh. Micky, Minnie, and Donald. I hadn't liked them so much as a child, but it seems they've morphed with modern technology into educational animals rather than ones that simply get caught in stupid situations and make impossible contortions with their bodies to get out of trouble. The colors are nice. As long as Teagan can't see the road from his car seat, he can learn about angles and the formation ducks fly in. I'm wondering if his first words will be, " . . . two sides of the triangle."

Same-old, same-old in a sense, but always different, and always worth a picture. I love being able to see the ships just about every day.

A few hours later and nearing Mount Hood, the clouds were interesting. In this case, the white thing on the left is INSIDE the car. Oh, well. I just like taking the photos.

More cloud formations nearing the mountain.

You get only a few good camera-worthy glimpses of Mount Hood as you skirt the old volcano. Today the glaciers are pared down to a bare minimum from where they were a decade or two ago.

Nice cloud formation, beautiful Mount Hood. Skirting the mountain by road.

Here's an underpass with pedestrian overpass adjacent to the mountain. It's attractive, with each design element featuring an animal or image. I hoped to get an animal in the camera sights as the car swooped past, but I think I got toboggans. On another trip, I believe I got a fish.

The small town of Government Camp is just off the main road. We stopped at the part of Government Camp that sits alongside the highway to use the facilities and take a break. As we pulled into a parking spot, a small animal (apparently a vole) scampered out of the weeds and stopped still. I didn't want to scare it, and my first photos were from farther away - as close as I could get with the optical zoom. After awhile, as it hadn't moved, I crept closer. It still didn't move, and I began to get the feeling it wasn't going to. "How weird," we both said, "It just crawled out of the grass right in front of our eyes and DIED, or what?"

Apparently so. This is my close-up of the cute little vole, but now it's a cute dead vole. I didn't touch it, but I did stomp on the ground a mere foot from the animal now baking in the sun at the top of the pass. Too bad. How strange. I wonder if it had been poisoned.

This is the view of Mt. Hood and the ski lift from the road at Government Camp. It looks beautiful, and today it was hot - about 95 degrees.

Here's another view of Mount Hood. For the record, this is the end of August, 2009, and the snow and ice is certainly depleted.

Laurel and Teagan get some exercise. I'd already checked to see about brain freezes or smoothies, but the place was out of ice cream and their freezer was broken. Hot coffee? Not today, thanks.

We had expected to see a lot of this, but there really wasn't much, so it didn't slow us down too much. Another two hours to go. Everything was going fine.

Past Mount Hood, down the slope and onto the high desert plains. It was August tan, gold and brown, and also hazy from fires. This particular short stretch is one of my favorites. It's in a slight draw with a marsh at the bottom. The branches of the marsh plants turn red and other interesting colors in most seasons. At one time it burned, and I always like the contrast of the tortured dark trees in front of Mount Jefferson, but unless one stops, there's only a fraction of a second to get a good photo from a moving car, and this time I didn't. In order to walk to a good photo stop, you need to park off the rise and walk on the narrow siding. That wasn't happening today, so I'm happy with the memory-book photo I did get.

Another photo of Mount Jefferson as we passed it, and then I put the camera aside for awhile even though there are wonderful rock formations between here and Bend.

I came up with one last photo, which I just love, in the valley at Warm Springs. I wouldn't know how to describe this feathery image with its subtle color and perfectly-formed shadow, so I'll simply say, I really like this one.

And on to Bend.

Back to Astoria

What struck me first was how brown and muddy the water was. I should have expected it, due to all the rain they had while I was in Bend, but I hadn't thought about that, only about whether there would be any flooding. Right here in our area, most of the water just runs into the river, taking mud an debris with it, of course. There were a few areas of minor flooding locally, but it was much worse in other areas not far from here. The water was really opaque, too. It's never clear enough to see much, but you could tell that even that visibility had diminished.

The Oriente Shine was resting comfortably on the river.

And the coots didn't seem to mind the conditions. Back in California, we used to call these birds "mud hens."

Lee and Laurel and I went to Coffee Girl for breakfast while James stayed home with Teagan. This is still one of the two places I really enjoy drinking coffee in Astoria.

Out the window, things were wet and dismal. I would have gone out on the deck for pictures and to look around, but it was one of the rare days I've seen where the doors to the outside were shut.

Inside the building at Pier 39, and just a few feet from Coffee Girl is a small museum of historic boats and local life. They have pictures and memorabilia of the days when Pier 39 was a "buzzing" (sorry) Bumblebee canning plant. It was actually Bumblebee Seafood's first cannery until it closed in 1996.

Coffee Girl still uses the original counter where the cannery workers (mostly women) ordered their coffee on breaks. You go in the door just to the right of the round sign.

When you leave or enter Coffee Girl, you pass through this open area inside the cannery building. A few new offices are moving in, and the museum and boats are to the left. The whole deal is at the end of Pier 39, sitting out in the river on pilings.

Here's looking back in the same general direction as the photo was taken above this one.

When we got back, James and Teagan were taking a snooze. I think Teagan was the snoozer, and James was watching TV. Teagan is just over a month old now. His actual due date was yesterday! He's doing great, as you can see. And he's a very nice baby, too!

Toward the end of the day, the weather came in again, and it was foggier and wetter than it had been during the day, which is saying it was pretty soggy. Although not pouring rain like it had been, it was not very inviting unless you happen to be a river animal of some kind.

Breakfast with Laurel

It's always nice when Laurel calls or sends a text message: "Breakfast?" It gets me out of my dungeon, off the computer, and we have a good time. We went to Coffee Girl. I like this photo of her in front of the painting with light coming through her eyes. I don't think she was really as worried as she looks here, but maybe briefly. She was talking with James and maybe talking about a test she'd taken in school.

Outside, Laurel in shadow and the background in bright sun. That's Tongue Point protruding in to the river. What you can't see here is how big the baby is getting. See Laurel's blog for details!

Morning with Laurel, Meow, and the Aleutian Ballad

After Kent came by to do the payroll, Laurel called and we went out to Coffee Girl for breakfast. I thought this boat looked interesting and took a photo, but I didn't realize the Aleutian Ballad was famous until Laurel told me. Not having TV, I get more done, but I miss a few things, too. Apparently one of the crew members on the show was from Astoria. I read online that the original boat has been fixed up since the TV series and now takes tourists on fishing adventures, which are less dangerous with lots of sea creatures and lots of incredible scenery. One of the web pages I read said, "The ALEUTIAN BALLAD is the only genuine Bering Sea Crab fishing vessel licensed to carry leisure passengers."

Coffee Girl is built into an old cannery on Pier 39. This sign on the women's bathroom doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

This one maybe more so. I'm glad it's functional. Thanks for letting us know.

At Jo-Ann's Laurel wanted to pick out some fabric and get get a couple of sheets of poster board for two weekend projects. It came down to two colors of blue for re-covering the chair. Inside her belly, the baby (Teagan, a boy) is now the size of a cabbage. Each month, the online baby site she subscribes to tells us what size the baby is by comparing it to a fruit or vegetable. I found it amusing from the first. "So, how's the cabbage today, Laurel?" "Fine, thank you." Today at breakfast he wiggled a lot. Maybe the designer coffee wasn't the style he wanted. Or maybe it was. "Thanks, Mom!"

Lots of colors of thread to choose from. I always loved these displays.

Fabrics are fun, too. I have no time for fabric projects these days. I spend all my time on the computer.

Every year I swear I'm going to take a photo of the local witches that apparently have very poor guidance systems. I couldn't get the light in the right spot with the right background and not be in the middle of the street. I was going to keep trying on the way back from our second trip to the fabric store, but my camera batteries gave out so this will have to do for the moment. To me it looks like the witches have a love affair with the light poles, but hey.

Blue eyes. This is Laurel and James's cat, "Meow," on the roof.

We couldn't decide whether light blue or dark blue would be better for the room, so we brought home a sample of each, and of course Meow wanted to get involved. We went back for the dark blue, and then I went home.

Morning, September 21 - Astoria, Oregon

Through the window at Coffee Girl. The white ship is the NOAA research vessel. I'm not sure what they're up to today, but a small boat took off at speed from the side of it, and then came around again quickly. Maybe they're tracking salmon? You can never tell, but the salmon are out there this week for sure. Ask the sea lions.

The cool thing about this photo, especially if you click on it to enlarge it, is that you can see one of the ships sitting on the river. It looks like it's on the pier, but it's not.

It was one of those days - foggily atmospheric outside and the feeling of having a free day and too much I wanted to do with it inside. If Laurel hadn't called me out to coffee (top photo, at Coffee Girl), I would have been at the PC ALL day. As it was, I made some progress with the animal jewelry web pages, putting more butterflies on the menu page, scanning and putting up a tarantula, some more gecko/salamanders, and some snakes. I don't know why this stuff takes SO long, but it does. I was messing with the format and organization a bit more and optimizing with links from other pages. The details never end. If the new site starts getting some traffic, it might simplify my life. It's fun, I just wish I had more time. But then, actually, by the time I get the old pin menu page pared down (taking out the individual items) and turned into links pages like the butterfly page and this one, Google will have found these new pages insects, reptiles, and more to come). So I guess it works out. Funny how that happens.

The landlord (Marty) spent the day putting in a new floor upstairs, so it was noisy. I've gotten used to that, as they've re-done the whole outside and underpinnings of the building. It will be nice when it's quiet again, though.

Laurel just finished blogging, too. She has lots of pregnant pictures now and people pictures. It's nice. I think I want to take more people pictures. Did you notice my blogs are mostly things and animals? Scenery? I don't dislike people, but yeah, I sure do avoid taking photos of them (and of me). A new day, a new world. It could happen.

Breakfast at Coffee Girl

This is one of my all-time favorite places for coffee and breakfast, or just for coffee and relaxing. I didn't take any view photos today, but the windows look out on the river. The shop is at the end of Pier 39, so it's entirely over the water. It's the location and the actual counter where the women would get coffee on their breaks at the Bumblebee tuna cannery when it was in operation. More photos of the location and view to come at some other time. Today Lee and I had breakfast with Laurel and James, and just enjoyed the company and enjoyed relaxing. Lee had the beautiful bagel and lox you see here with the artistic mocha. I had a granola, fruit, yogurt parfait with my usual decaf extra wet cappuccino. Mine had a heart on the top.