April 7, Astoria: Fog and boats on the river

I drove into Astoria early from Portland - well, it seemed early to me, since I had to get up before 7, but I didn't actually get back to Astoria until about 9:30. By 11:07, when I took this photo, the sun had burned the fog off of the town, but it still lingered on the water, making for yet another interesting permutation of lighting and elements. Note the "ghost ship" behind the pilings, and you can't even see the hills in Washington. The air still felt pretty chilly to me. I saw people walking around in t-shirts, but I was happy to pull on my warm jacket before going out.

I'm not sure if this is Coast Guard or someone else, but they're jetting across the scene to get somewhere in a hurry. On the right you can just see the green buoy. It's not really floating in air, but it looks that way. The air in the foreground is clear, but as sometimes happens, the fog lingers over the water. I took these pix from the old ferry dock at the foot of 14th Street.

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.

April 4, Astoria: The garden, before and after

This little patch of garden near our front door isn't very big, and that's probably a good thing. When we moved in two years ago, I was too busy to tackle it, then last year I started planting some things and the owners followed through with their plans to renovate the entire outside of the building. It looks great now, but for the duration I couldn't even get to the garden, let alone do anything. It had tarps on it, equipment, lumber, ladders, and work boots trampling on it all summer. A few things survived - the peppermint on the left, some purple sage in the middle, lavender on the right, and (surprise to me) a couple of small stands of chives were coming up and smelled really good. I didn't remember that they were there last year. After months and months of rain, I decided to take part of this sunny Saturday and dig in.

Here's the "after" shot. It's hard to photograph in the mixed light and shade, but I got most of the weeds and grass out. Oh my god, was that hard; my muscles are screaming at me tonight. Four and a half (or was that five and a half) laps on the treadmill last night were only about a quarter as hard as this. I had fun, but "ouch." Some of the plot has nice potting soil, and some is the worst rocky subsoil. Then there were the huge chunks of grass with roots that infiltrated like molars. I moved the rocks out around part of the border to take in the whole dirt area. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some more plants and finish filling it in.

Here's another photo of it after I finished today. I left in everything I could from last year, and addd new things. The plants I bought last night were Siberian wallflower (yellow), carnations (light pink), Tuscan blue Rosemary, fuchsia (babies), cyclamen (purplish, I hope), variegated rockcress (blue/purple), columbine hybrid ("swan pink and yellow"), heather (bright purple, right front), ranunculus (deep red-purple), anemone Mona Lisa (the big red flower; I may need more in that or other colors). I tried to get mostly perennials, but I have some annuals, too. I like it when they get big year after year, and it's less work and expense. My most recent experience trying to keep a garden taught me that some of the "annuals" actually last a few years, depending on what they are. There are a couple of sucker trees or big bushes around the backlog that will need clippers.

I bought the flowers at Freddy's last night, and they looked nice in the sun this morning.

I think I'd like to put in a more ambitious planter here on the outside of the building. Other businesses have them down the River Walk and in town, and they look so nice. These pots came from my apartment, planted several years ago, and I've neglected them badly for two years. They're herbs, or they were. I bought some bush beans and things to try in pots this year, and also some herb seeds. Yeah, I'll get to the dandelions, too. They're pretty, but you look at them and your mind says, "weed," so I guess they have to come out.

This area is between the garden and the front steps of the business. I want to do something about that grass, because it's not mowable. I put the pots there for the moment, but I'll plant something else - maybe spearmint and purple sage. They do really well and shouldn't need much maintenance. I hope the fern rejuvenates. I like it, and it came with the place. If not, the spearmint will probably take over anyway.

April 2, Astoria: Ships on the waterfront

It was overcast this morning with some interesting cloud effects on the river. Also a couple of interesting ships. The Oregon Responder (above) is an oil-spill clean-up boat. I'm not sure what else it does or where it was coming from today. It looks like it was going back to its home dock, which is in the West Mooring basin in Astoria.

I did a post on the Aleutian Ballad in November. Here it is on the river going towards the ocean. The waves are getting rough.

And then the sky cleared up except for scattered clouds, but it's still cold and windy. I've been inside working all day, just going out on the deck to take a few photos.

After work, I put on my heaviest jacket and went out to wander around the Maritime Museum a bit and look at the ships, boats and whatever I could find. It was a good excuse to get out and stand in the wind for awhile. I should ask them at the museum about this little harbor made of pilings. It doesn't seem to offer much shelter for a boat, so I wonder what it's used for.

Here's an old bell in front of the Maritime Museum. The housing, support, whatever, has new paint, though.

Near the bell are several benches, and this plaque is in the pavement under one of the benches. Captain Gray was the first person of European descent to discover the Columbia River, and he named it after his ship, the "Columbia Rediviva."

And here's the plaque in situ beneath the bench in front of the museum. The ship in the water, the Columbia, is a retired lightship, and has nothing to do with Captain Gray's sailing ship.

I really like this photo of the Coast Guard buoy, also retired and floating here at the museum. It's actually rocking pretty hard on the waves today.

The ship and the buoy. The lightship is part of the museum, and you can tour through it when the museum is open.

This photo shows the Maritime Museum along with the buoy and the Columbia lightship. I love the colors, especially of the buoy.

I took this picture to show what was happening with the water. When the buoy rocked, it smacked down on the water causing small waves.

On the other side of the pier, this boat caused even larger waves when it rocked. The Spirit of '98 from Seattle isn't one I see here very often. That doesn't mean it isn't a regular, but I've rarely noticed it. I don't get over here to look at the boats that often. If you can see it, there's the faintest rainbow in the spray. Of course, once I took camera away from my eye, the boat rocked up a much better rainbow!

Here's the Spirit at the dock with dark clouds to the east.

This is the Coast Guard ship Steadfast, which pretty much lives here in the dock.

That's the peninsula of Tongue Point.

I took this one from the east side of the Maritime Museum. I didn't get the shot just as the waves crashed the highest. This is a river, not the ocean, but we do get waves. It's so wide that the wind has a chance to blow them up on a windy day.

More waves, lighting, and old pilings from east of the Maritime Museum.

I love it that the old pilings and foundations in the river turn such a bright green. Nice seagull, too.

I'm looking for descendants of Francis Seeley Foote (Frank Seely Foote, Frank Foote, Francis Seely Foote)

Hi all,

I'm looking for descendants of Francis (Frank) Seeley Foote. I have a number of original photos of Frank as a child and of his family. Please drop me an e-mail. If I can't find the family, I would be interested in donating the photos to an appropriate museum or historical society.

Thanks,

Sheryl Todd