Day 4: Astoria, OR and Long Beach, WA

We left Holly's house early, 8am, and drove to Astoria, Oregon.  It is across the Columbia River, from Washington.  In the first picture you can see the bridge we drove across.  It was 3.6 miles long.  This is the point where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean.  It was a very cute town. 

 Container ships in the Columbia River.

 

 We visited the Astoria Column, built to honor the explorers, Lewis and Clark.  They ended their expedition near here, when they made it to the Pacific Ocean.  We climbed to the top.

 

 This was at the column, too.  I think it represents a canoe Lewis and Clark used.

 

 Cousins Gavin and Evan.  The other cousins, Matt, Adam and Greta are running down the hill.

 

 

 This is a famous house in Astoria. 

Two clues:  truffle-shuffle and Sloth.

I hoped you guessed Goonies. 

This is the house that was used in the Goonies movie.

 

 Then we drove 20 miles further into Oregon to see Ft. Clatsop, the final fort of Lewis and Clark. 

The kids had fun checking it out.  See Gavin running back and forth.

 

 Adam, Alexis, Derek, Holly, Evan and Robert

 

 

 One of our musts for this trip was to eat fresh seafood.  This was the fish-n-chips place we ate at in Astoria.  It was a 30 minute wait in line.  We ended up eating fish three times on our trip.  My favorite was Ivar's, in Seattle.

 

 

 

In the afternoon we drove back to Washington, to Long Beach.  This is the longest beach in the U.S., 26 miles, hence it's name.  The kids brought their swimsuits.  It was cold water!, nothing like Miami.  But that didn't stop them.  Matt played a ton in the water.  Later, he nearly froze to death.  I was brave enough to walk in the water, but it was cold.

 Robert, Holly freezing, and Derek taking Evan and Greta out. 

 

 Adam had fun, too.  He took a little stroll and then played a bunch in the sand.  He covered himself in it.  This required him to thoroughly wash himself in the cold water--not a fun task.

 

 Evan, Greta and Gavin enjoyed playing in the sand.  Evan and Gavin were intent on building a moat, but the tide was coming in and kept collapsing it.  The sand was gray in color--very pretty.

 Here's an elevated view of the Washington coast.

 

After playing at the beach, we drove up to a lighthouse.  We got there too late to go inside but it was fun anyway.  We could feel the cold ocean spray and wind. 

We ate dinner in the beach town of Long Beach--fish-n-chips, of course, and then drove home to Holly's.  We were all quite tired.  We slept in a bit the next morning.  That was nice because we had a more relaxed day.