June 4 and 5 - Mt. St. Helen's

 

 

Larry, Lu, Galen and I went to Mt. St. Helen's on June 4.  This is a panorama shot I took that turned out well.

We hiked in a lava tube (Ape Cave) on the other side of Mt. St. Helen's on June 5, but it is totally dark in there and none of my photos turned out.  We took a walk through a lava field after going into Ape Cave and if we'd wanted to (we didn't!) we could have gone down these stairs and crawled through a much smaller and shorter lava tube.  The round hole is formed by what is left after lava surrounds a tree and the tree is burned away.  Holes like this were all over the lava field.

Larry looks like he just came out of the lava tube, but he was just taking photos.  The two guys in the background are standing at the ladder where the lava tube begins.

Jun 3 - Fav Trail

My favorite bike trail at Fort Stevens is the one going over to the Historical Area and we took a last ride on it today.  Found a couple of geocaches, too.  Getting up and over this bridge is not my favorite part of the trail, but the rest of it is beautiful and quiet - far from any road.

May 31 - Last day of work

This is our last official day of work.  Galen is sitting in "our" wood cart.  The sign on the left was made by me and is on the other wood cart and all the wood sheds.  I made new signs for our shed because the others didn't look so great any more and everyone liked mine better so I made signs for all!

May 31 - Happy 40th

Happy 40th Anniversary to Larry and Lu!  We celebrated by going to the South Jetty for the best crab cakes we've ever had - our second visit to this restaurant for crab cakes.

May 23 - Astoria Column

The Astoria Column sits high on a hill in Astoria.  The artwork shows the history of the area.

You can climb stairs to the top of the column.  That's Larry waving at us.

We got this view without climbing the stairs.  Warrenton and Hammond are on the other side of the rivers.

Some stats:  Height-125'; Steps-164; Length of artwork unwound-500'.

May 23 - Fort Clatsop

Lewis and Clark wintered here and the fort is a replica of their fort.  A previous replica burned to the ground in 2005 and was rebuilt.

May 23 - Maritime Museum

You have heard of lighthouses.  This is a lightship that was stationed at the very dangerous junction of the Pacific Ocean and the Columbia River.  Men would work on this ship two weeks at a time - lots of boring time except during the horrific storms.

The lightship kitchen.

Four men to a room.

Locations of some of the shipwrecks.  This is one of the most dangerous places in the world for a ship.

The Maritime Museum in Astoria, OR is a wonderful museum.  The background and and people in this photo aren't real, but the ship is an actual coast guard ship.

I don't know if this is a temporary or permanent exhibit, but it kind of creeped me out so I didn't spend much time in this part of the museum.

There were once a number of canneries in Astoria and they canned a LOT of salmon.  All the salmon was the same, but there was a wide variety of labels stuck on the cans.

From the Art Exhibit section of the museum.

Bells and Whistles.