Astoria  - on the Sunday, Sept.19^th (the second day of our Ft Stevens stay)

After our second night at the state campsite, we packed up and were heading south, except for a short stop to see the town of Astoria. This town is perched on a steep hillside at the mouth of the Columbia. Its history dates back into the 1800's. Like Port Townsend, there are many old Victorian homes, with quite a number fully restored. The most famous house was owned by the first “captain” of the port. His name was Joseph Flavel. Today the home has been fully restored and furnished by the local historical society. It is truly beautiful. Designed by an architect in the Queen Anne style with large rooms and 12 ft ceilings, the inside was furnished in the latest fashions from the late 1800's. The house had a turret that must have been 40 ft high, from where the captain could keep an eye on the river mouth.

The grounds of this elegant mansion were also restored to their former beauty with a rose garden and shrubbery and large trees throughout. The back corner of the grounds had a carriage house where Flavel kept his three horses and sleds and buggies. For the $4 tour it was a truly great value, as indicated by the nearly 250,000 people who visited it last year—not bad for a town with less than 10,000 residents!

From the Flavel house we went to the downtown market. They cordon off 3 blocks of 12^th street every Sunday and set up a fabulous “down-town by the sea” market where venders rent out little 12x12 roof tents and market everything from food to clothes to hand crafts of all descriptions.

After an hour or so at the market we headed to a very unique spot on the highest point of land in Astoria. This was a circular column standing 125 ft tall and hollow, with 164 circular steps leading up to the top. I started running up the stairs, but after about 30 steps, I was so dizzy that I had to stop for fear of falling over!

                                                                 What a view!!

but the wind was so strong that when you walked out onto the wrought iron platform at the top, you had to really hang on to the railing (and your hat!). Needless to say, I did not stay outside too long. The outside of this structure was carved and painted in a spiral fashion to depict the history of Astoria as the spiral pictures and lettering wound around the column. We’ve never seen anything quite like this piece of sculptured artwork.

Finally after this little stop, we headed south, on our way to Seaside.

Once we got to Seaside, the first thing that we did was find a Safeway. I was still trying to get that darn Tracphone working. The customer service at Safeways was incredible, but even with her doing all the work on trying to activate the phone, it took over ½ hour! However finally it was working, but we still had to wait an additional 48 hours before the phone could be used to make out-of-country calls.

Seaside is definitely a summer-time playground for a lot of people. Beach shops were everywhere, also restaurants, and bars. It looks like an “in” place to be in the summer months. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, however Ade was truly disappointed with the Margarita, but the food was great and very reasonable.

That night we just drove about ½ mile south of the city center and stayed on a dead-end by the beach (

K street

) What a great spot, quiet and clean, but wow did it rain for parts of the night.