Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Goondocks: Photo Blog Part 1
A Woman Obsessed • Out and About •
I’m back on the east coast, but not on east coast time since it’s already 1:30 in the pm and I still haven’t eaten anything today. Since I switched to an earlier flight but neglected to do the same for my luggage, there’s little for me to do today other than post pictures! But since I took over 500, I’ll just give you the highlights from day one. I only had 2 1/2 days of vacation out there before work took over, but, as you’ll see, I definitely made the most of them.
I flew into Portland on Thursday night and got a glimpse of a national landmark, Mount St. Helens.
We spent the night in Woodland, Washington. Then we drove Route 4 along the Columbia River on the Washington side. I saw, among all the beautiful sights, the somewhat disturbing view of where all those logs come from before they end up on giant trucks.
We then hooked up with Highway 101 and drove that into Astoria, OR—The Goondocks!
The Chamber of Commerce folks were very friendly and helpful. We had lunch (only because we JUST missed breakfast) at the Cannery Cafe before beginning hitting the real Goondocks sights.
First stop, the County Jail where the movie begins.
Right across the street is the Flavel House Museum—Mikey’s dad’s museum. I’d like to move in please.
Of course I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to hug a massive, 115-year-old Red Sequoia. Just amazing.
Next stop—the Goonies house. But we had a little trouble finding it so we pulled over near a pier to listen to the crazy seals and see the trolley.
At last, success! The Goonies house, with Data’s house right next door. There were two other girls there doing the exact same thing.
We the went up to see the Astoria Column and a panoramic view of the city.
And of course we did a little shopping in town where I found a Louis Vuitton wallet and this guy.
We finally found the bowling alley, but it was on our way out of Astoria and so alas, no photo. We found a place to spend the night (not cheaply) in Seaside and had dinner at a sushi place in town. We also learned that some huge race would be ending during the night—the Hood to Coast race, the largest relay race in the country.
I couldn’t resist checking out the beach that night, even though it’d been a full day already, since we were only 4 1/2 blocks from the ocean. I’m so glad I did. I found swings on the beach! Brilliant!
I also got to see Tillamook Head, the view from which Lewis and Clark (or maybe it was just one of them) said it was the most beautiful they’d ever seen.
After swinging on the swings, I walked down the 2-mile promenade to find something, uh, unnerving, check out the finish line and see another gorgeous view.
Stay tuned for day 2, including Ecola State Park, Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock—some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.
