Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Travel
We left at 9:15am from Cascade Locks at 54degrees, a really great campsite for us in Oregon and Washington. 

The ride west along the Columbia River through Portland, OR was very beautiful and the weather was lovely.  We rode through Astoria, OR to eventually camp in Warrenton, OR.  And we rode over the Willamette River near Portland and then along the Columbia. We saw many logging trucks, stacked logs and harvested hills of timber along the way. Rt 30 is also called the Lower Columbia River Highway;  


Fort Stevens Military Historic Site, Hammond, OR

We arrived at our Astoria/ Warrenton/ Seaside KOA at 12:45, set up, had lunch then set off for Ft Stevens Military Historic Site.

I believe we toured Fort Stevens with Cheryl in 2014 and walked the batteries and grounds.  

Fort Stevens was an American military installation that guarded the mouth of the Columbia River  in the state of Oregon.  Built near the end of the American Civil War, it was named for a slain Civil War general and former Washington Territory governor, Issac Stevens. 

The fort was an active military reservation from 1863–1947.  It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Fort Stevens guarded the southern, OR side of the Columbia River and Ft Canby guarded the northern, WA side during the Civil War, WWI and WWII. 

Japanese Submarine Bombardment Site, Warrenton, OR
Inside the Museum was a display of the Japanese bombardment of Ft Stevens.  And just down the street a few miles from Fort Stevens we found the Japanese Shelling Site memorial.  

On the night of June 21-22, 1942, the Japanese submarine I-25 surfaced off Fort Stevens and fired 17 shells from her 14cm calibre deck gun, making Fort Stevens the only military installation in the continental United States to come under enemy fire in WWII. There was minimal damage to the baseball backstop, but fury at the US Army Officers who would not allow the soldiers to return fire on the Japanese submarine.


Lewis and Clark Trails End, Seaside, OR

From there we drove south along Rt 101, along the coast to Seaside, OR. 

Whoa!  Add Seaside Heights, NJ  and Point Pleasant, NJ, remove the boardwalks and you get the feel of this sketchy, small town, tourist attraction....

BUT...

...at the end of the Broadway cul-de-sac, one lane, is the memorial to Lewis and Clark's epic adventure...Trails End.  I couldn't even stop to take a picture. Crazy busy.

Salt Works

 Lewis and Clark Salt Works, Seaside, OR
About 10 miles south along the coast from Fort Clatsop, L&C's winter quarters for 3 months, December 1805 to March 1806, was their Salt Works in Seaside, OR. They left 3-5 soldiers there for weeks to boil seawater for the four bushels of salt they eventually got in order to preserve their meat and fish for the eastward return journey.  It sits about 300 yards off of the Ocean in the middle of a residential area.  It was actual deeded in the property owner's estate and was remembered by a Native's grandfather.

This Plaque describes the Salt works determined in 1900
by a Clatsop woman (born in 1816) whose father
remembered "white men boiling water by the sea." 

Salt Works

Salt Works

"O! the Joy" - The Pacific
Down the end of the street from the Salt Works is the Pacific Ocean. We walked over a long dune to the open Pacific Ocean shore...the tide was out, so the beach was quite long. A beautiful evening.

Wilma at the Pacific

November 7, 1705 - Clark wrote, "Great Joy in camp we are in View of the Ocian, this great Pacific Octean which we been So long anxious to See. and the roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores (as I Suppose) may be heard distictly."

On November 29, 1805 Clark wrote, "...now 24 days Since we arrived in Sight of the Great Western Ocian, I cant Say Pasific as Since I have Seen it, it has been the reverse." He was joking about the weather conditions on the ocean whose name means "peaceful."  

Bill at the Pacific.

William Clark carved on an evergreen tree, "William Clark December 3rd 1805. By Land and from the U.States in 1804 & 1805"















One More Thing...

Columbia Bank, Seaside, OR... I just had to use their ATM and walk inside and tell them I worked at the BEST Columbia Bank in the USA, in Fair Lawn, NJ!  The three of them were very glad I stopped by.


Call It A Day
We decided to have seafood in Astoria, OR and had a lovely scallops/salmon dinner at the Silver Salmon Grille in Downtown, Astoria, OR. Splendid Alaska Lager and seafood!

Tomorrow we hope to go first to Cape Disappointment, Fort Canby State Park, Fort Columbia State Park and Interpretive Center in WA, then Fort Clatsop, OR, the end of the westward Lewis and Clark Trail.