We got up sort of early Saturday as we had a full day. Astoria is a small town (pop 10,000) but it has a surprising amount of things to do - it's also where the 1985 movie The Goonies was filmed. We headed toward the 125-foot high Astoria Column on a 600-foot hill above the town. After climbing 164 steps to the top, we were treated to an awesome panoramic view of the surrounding hills and waterways. For only a $1 parking fee, the column offered one of the best views on the trip.

Afterward, we headed back to our hotel to check out and then drove downtown to park. Our next stop was the Columbia River Maritime Museum, which we had read good things about. The museum was of impressively high quality and very informative on a number of subjects including the history of Astoria, salmon fishing, shipping, steam boating on the Columbia River, dangerous weather, and ship wrecks. Astoria originally attracted settlers for salmon fishing and canning. The Columbia River is very dangerous for maritime travel but has long served as a major route for shipping. Next to the museum was a small lightboat, which used to accommodate several people to help guide passing ships. Even in the quiet waters near the shore, we could feel the boat rocking.

We bought our lunch out of a boat in a dirt lot across the street called Bowpicker Fish & Chips and sat outside to eat. Afterward, we walked farther down the riverfront and watched a big ship pass by. After this we drove back and forth over the Astoria-Megler Bridge again so that we could see what it was like in the daytime and then headed farther down the coast.

Our next stop was Ecola State Park where we parked and went on a short and moderately difficult hike through a forest near the water. We had good views of the coast and went down to the beach where we relaxed on a log. We had a good view of the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse (also known as Terrible Tilly), which was built on a rock more than a mile out from the shore in 1881. It experienced a lot of abuse from storms and was the most expensive lighthouse to maintain in the US before it was decommissioned in 1957. We walked along the beach a little and took a narrow, steep trail back to the main trail.

We were close to the popular tourist town of Cannon Beach and visited a bakery that we had read about online. I got a fresh peanut butter and chocolate chunk cookie and Lesley got a sticky bun. We went down to the beach to eat these and then we walked barefoot to Haystack Rock. There were a lot of people around, but we found a quiet spot to lie in the sand for a while. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

We then drove back into the heart of Cannon Beach and stopped at a candy shop to buy some taffy and then we ate dinner in the town. By then it was around sunset and we had a pretty drive to our hotel. We had just missed the sunset, but we had a view of the ocean from our window. We walked around the beach some at night and then had some taffy and tea in our room.

View from Astoria Column on Vimeo.

View from Ecola Park on Vimeo.

Cannon Beach on Vimeo.