Last Oregon Stop

We stopped for two nights at Hammond Marina and RV Park.  Thanks to Jim and Gayle for the tip.  It was $30 for full hookups, so the RV was relieved.  Where is Hammond, you ask?  Well, so did I.  It's conveniently located in the very northwest corner of Oregon, near precious Astoria.

Astoria has this amazing monument which uniquely depicts local historical events from 1792, when Captain Robert Gray discovered the mouth of the Columbia River, to the arrival of the railroad in the 1880s.

The Astoria Column is probably my favorite monument of all time.  The unique spiral timeline pictorial is amazing.

But the previous two pictures are from our last visit in 2011, because this is what it looks like now.

They're cleaning it up and making a few minor repairs.  You can see the scaffolding through the protective sheeting.

It will be even more wonderful when they finish.  Meanwhile, its position atop Coxcomb Hill is still the best view around.  Here's a section of the Astoria-Megler Bridge, which spans the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.  At over 4 miles in length, it's quite impressive.

There were several tanker ships hanging around up river.

Astoria has some fun touristy things to do, but we looked for things we had missed on our last trip.  Fort Clatsop was the winter home of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery after they completed their historic and mind-boggling trip from St. Louis.  After watching the excellent movie in the visitors center and looking at the displays, we headed to the replica of the fort and the entertainment.  Those leather pants just don't look comfortable.

I wish the wind had been blowing to show the flag with 15 stars and stripes.

There was a flintlock demonstration.  I bet my cousin Terry would love to participate in that.

Although he was shooting spit balls, he did use gunpowder in the flintlock so there was a loud bang and cool smoke.  I was a little early taking the picture because I thought he was going to fire on 'three', instead of  'one, two, three', then fire.

I have a side note.  I've said before how much I use the AllStays app.  After my last blog post, I got an email from them answering my comment that I had sent corrections and hadn't seen them in the app.  Well, Adam explained that he updates the website immediately, but updates to the app are only made a few times a year.  Good to know.