From Astoria to Seattle

20 August 2012

We had to get up early for the free continental breakfast, and I didn’t sleep well at all with too much morning light, but I was overjoyed to find the last prune tart among the pastries! These are my dad’s favorites, and I tried making them for Christmas a few years ago using my Grandma Peterson’s recipe using bourbon-butter-heavy cream puff pastry that is LOTS of work. Mine tasted just like hers, and better than this one for breakfast, but mine did not want to stay closed in the cute pinwheel shape. I’m sure Grandma’s favorite part about this breakfast was that our table partners guess she might be in her 80s…haha! The bright colors today definitely made her sparkle!

I still can’t believe I was only one block away from the Goonies house the night before, but the morning was a better view anyway instead of looking into the evening sun. Sure it’s fun to see the Goonies house, but my grandfather’s childhood home is just down the street, even barely visible in the movie, so I wanted to take good photos of it…but I still don’t know which one it is! So I took lots of photos up & down both streets from the corner, and my dad will have to tell me later.

It was still only 10:15am, so we took another chance at going up to the Astoria Column, a artistic marker commemorating the voyages of Lewis & Clark. I’ve always thought the sepia paintings in the spiral around the column were very pretty. We had both climbed to the top before, and Grandma couldn’t do that now, so I set the tripod on the hood of the van again for our photo. Another bonus that we had to wait until the morning since the blue skies with clouds made for an absolutely gorgeous view of Astoria & the ocean!

That was Astoria mission accomplished, so the bridge was next. The construction on the bridge had it down to one lane so each lane had to wait for the other, but that was great for a photo that would never have been safe while moving! The Washington side also had construction with a similar wait, so while we were sitting stopped on the bridge, Grandma took a couple photos out her window looking east up into the Columbia River, and I took a couple looking out at Cape Disappointment on the ocean.

I misread my directions so we ended up on 101 N the long way through Willapa Natural Wildlife Refuge until we found the normal 101 N to Aberdeen. Right before getting on Hwy 12 to Olympia we stopped for delicious blackberry milkshakes in Montesano, then back on the freeway through construction by 1pm.

We were passing through forests with large areas cut down, but I had seen a few groves with 10-20 ft trees that looked like replanting efforts. Then we saw a bunch of wonky old growth trees that had a Weyerhaeuser sign saying that grove was hit by hurricane force winds in 2007. We also saw two more Weyerhaeuser signs, one generically voicing their commitment to reforesting, an another for a grove of douglas firs planted in 1999 that were probably at least 20ft tall already. My dad worked for Weyerhaeuser for 30 years so I’ve heard plenty about how the wood & paper business has changed over the years, but I’d never seen any of their forests.

Grandma had an appointment today with a new doctor that could not be changed, so we were on a schedule to get back north of downtown Seattle before 3pm. We were making good time, but it was beginning to look tight, and the carpool lane wasn’t making much difference. Finally we made it to our exit 15 minutes before the appointment, very thankful we weren’t going south since that was a parking lot all the way south into Seattle! By the time we had left the doctor, stopped for groceries, pizza for dinner, and a necessary pie for dessert, back home in her driveway I counted 1289 miles round trip, all driven by me…whew! No wonder I’m a bit sick of driving!

Full photo gallery below as always. We had a great road trip, and now I have two days left before I fly home, but I doubt I’ll be relaxing knowing Grandma’s schedule. We all think keeping so busy keeps her young!