10 July 2012

First stop, Bullseye Glass, where I bought some different special blend small pieces of glass.  I showed great restraint, mostly because I was space constrained.  After Bullseye, we drove the Columbia River route on the Oregon side all the way from Portland to Astoria.  Along the way we stopped at Gnat Creek Fish Hatchery.  The fishery had small Chinook salmons, large rainbow trout, and a very large sturgeon.

Roger had been to Astoria in 1996 on ship, so there wasn’t a lot we wanted to see.  We did stop at the Oregon Visitors Center and got information on the Lewis and Clark Trail and National Park.  We stopped at a replica of Fort Clatsop, which was the wintering fort for Lewis and Clark from early December 1805 until March 1806.  The Corps of Discovery had 33 people during the winter-over, leadership in Captains Lewis and Clark, 3 sergeants, 1 male French translator, Sacagawea, and their infant son, York (who was Clark’s slave), and 22 Army enlisted troops.  The hard part of the trip started in St Louis, went north as far as they could on the Missouri River, took one month to make an 18 mile by-pass of the Great Falls of the Missouri, followed by land transit across the “Stony (Rocky) Mountains” to the head waters of the Snake River, down to the Columbia River and finally the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Once they spent the winter at Fort Clatsop (named in honor of the Clatsop Indians who were crucial in the Corps’ survival) they had to get back to St Louis.  [It is interesting to note that the town of Astoria was founded only 5 years after Lewis and Clark made it back east.  Then the Pacific whaling industry took off.]

Troop rooms, based upon the journals of Lewis and Clark. 

The shared officer's room of Lewis and Clark.

We’re spending the night south of Seaside, Oregon.  The marine layer has started to come in and reminded me why I didn’t like living on the Pacific coast.  It is chilly now, and we’re debating whether to wear long pants tomorrow or not.  The weather report has Seaside having a high of 68 degrees, with the marine layer burning off afternoon.