Where the Columbia River Meets the Pacific Ocean

The Columbia River separates the states of Washington from Oregon. By looking at the map below you can see that the town of Astoria, Oregon sits on the banks of the river but that there isn't a town on the northern banks, that's because there are mountains on the north side of the river.  See those green areas, those are state parks, one is a National Wildlife Refuge.  We are staying on that spit of land to the far west or left, just up the road from Long Beach.  There is a Costco and Fred Meyer's store in Warrenton, Oregon just west of Astoria, all on highway 101.  So we've been back and forth across the Astoria bridge several times.  The mouth of the river is 4 miles wide, at the bridge.

The dashed line in the river is the state boundaries. 

I'm showing you this so you could see just how green everything is.
But you can also see Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and

Mt Rainier National Park.  Those two are tall mountains with snow on their tops.

Cape Disappointment Lighthouse on the Washington side of the river.

On the south side of the river looking north.
Columbia River to the right Pacific Ocean to the left.

On the north looking south
This ship is on the river, see that little bit of land out there to the right of the ship?
That's where I was standing when I took the picture before this one.

This is on the north of the river.
River to the left ocean to the right.

Oregon Coast looking south.

The beautiful Astoria Bridge.
Astoria to the left and Washington to the right across the bridge.

Harbor under the bridge.

Logs loaded onto the Camila ready to go.
The next time we went by the barge was gone.
I don't know where to.

Shipwreck on beach.

Evie and Joy

This is another picture of where we're parked.

There are three other friends parked here as well.

It's Not Always Fun and Games

Oh no, the slide won't come in all the way, now what.  We were on our way to Long Beach, Washington to visit friends when this happened.  We had to drive to an rv repair shop, only 7 miles away in Aberdeen, Washington, to have him show me how to do a 'manual override' of the electronic controls, which brought the slide in.  No he doesn't work on slides but Tillamook RV Repairs down in Oregon does.  

So off to Tillamook, Oregon we go for a tuesday morning appointment to take a look and see what we need to do. Yes we can stay in their back lot , which we did for two nights.  Bad news, it's the motor which is still working but a tiny part is broken and guess what, that company isn't around any more and in fact has been bought and sold twice since 2002. 

But Morgan at Tillamook RV found a guy in Ohio who repairs these things so off to UPS I go to ship the things to Ohio for repairs.  Repairs will take around 6 weeks so until then the slide remains in.  Bummer.

Now for some fun.

The airport in Tillamook was a busy place during World War II.  Please go here to read about it and to see more pictures.

1944 construction begins on the hangers, wooden construction with massive 

concrete columns to hold up the door assembly. 

One of the two hangers today.

These hangers were where the blimps lived.  These blimps were used to

patrol the coast during WWII.

See those concrete columns 

Sorry this picture isn't the best

See those 4 columns over there?  They're all that's left of the other blimp hanger

that burned to the ground in the 1990's.  That area is now used by a lumber company.

We stayed in the Tillamook area for a week.  We found this little city park, in the town of Bay City, that had 4 rv sites with full hook-ups and we were lucky enough to snag one.  So on the following monday we headed north back up to Long Beach, Washington to visit and stay with friends. 

You may have noticed the new header picture.  This is where we are now at my friends home.  As you can see they have lots of room for friends to drop in and to stay awhile.

Long Beach is about 20 miles north of Astoria Oregon and the next posts will be about that area.  

Be back soon.

Evie and Joy