Day 4 – 7/11/25 (Friday) Astoria

 All morning we walked around the old, charming town of Astoria. Lots of history here starting with Lewis and Clark who spent their first winter (1805/06) near here in the fort (Fort Clatsop) that they built for that purpose. It was a miserable winter – they wrote in their journals that out of 130 days they spent in this area, it rained every day but 12. We were much more lucky – it was a beautiful, warm but not hot, day. We decided to have lunch in town, and since the best fish&chips place was a food truck with an extremely long line, we settled for the second best and had our fish and chips at Hurricane Ron’s (mostly because of their flowers). Then we boarded a 100-year old tram for a narrated tour of Astoria. It’s run by volunteers and costs $1. Then we walked along the river bank learning more about the Scandinavian origins of Astoria and also about the two kinds of river pilots needed to navigate around the mouth of the Columbia River. The Columbia River Bar is a treacherous area where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean, notorious for its strong currents, heavy surf, and frequent shipwrecks. It's known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific" due to the numerous vessels that have been lost there. There is a group of pilots that specialize just in this area – the bar pilot. There is also another group of pilots that help navigate the rest of the river – the river pilots. Both have their headquarters in Astoria.  On the way back to the ship, we visited the Maritime Museum, which was quite interesting too.

In late afternoon we tool a bus excursion to the Astoria Column. It’s up a steep hill and that’s why we went by bus. Astoria is sometimes called little San Francisco because of the streets going steeply up and down. The column is a concrete and steel structure built in 1926 and decorated all over with murals depicting historical scenes. It had to be renovated twice already because of the paint had deteriorated. You can climb 160 steps to the top to have a magnificent view of the area, which Bo did.  

Social score: dinner – neutral – couple from Florida who used to live in the Bay area

Entertainment: a young female singer who had problems with her recorded music




























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