Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The End of My Journey West

My journey West is ending at the same place that Lewis and Clark ended their journey west. After arriving at the Pacific Ocean in November 1805, they settled down for the winter at Fort Clatsop, a log fort that they built on the southern side of the Columbia River, near present-day Astoria, OR.

The Indians were friendly here, and they hoped there would be enough wild game to feed their men. During the 106 days the Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered at Fort Clatsop in 1806 it rained all but 12 days and only 6 days were sunny.


The weather was great the day I visited the reconstructed fort. William Clark was even there to greet me.


The fort contained 6 rooms, and the one Lewis and Clark had was quite nice. I hope the roof didn't leak.


The big tourist attraction in Astoria is the Astoria Column, which sits on a hill high above town. It tells the history of the area in a long 500'+ art work wrapped around the column.


Several of the scenes depict Lewis & Clark: Crossing the Mountains,


Reaching the Pacific,


Obtaining salt by boiling sea water, being greeted by the Indians,



And building Fort Clatsop.


South of town, I visited Youngs River Falls, which was found by one of their hunting parties.


And now, something unrelated to Lewis & Clark! The Peter Iredale was a steel-hulled sailing ship built in 1890. She transported grain from the Pacific Northwest to Australia. In October 1906, she ran aground near here. More than 100 years ago! You wouldn't think there would be anything left!


But wow! That's one big piece of rusty stuff!


A large piece of the bow, and smaller pieces of the rest of the ship are still sunk in the sand on the beach, including the bottom of 2 of the masts. The ship was 287' long - almost as long as a football field!

6 comments:

  1. I love that photo of that "big piece of rusty stuff!" It's oddly beautiful. Nice, clean composition, too!

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  2. Thanks for the tour, we were planning on getting to the coast there this season, but it looks like we will not get farther west than Idaho before we turn east.

    Now we know what we have missed this year.

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  3. Great job and great pictures as always. It's such a lovely area (when the sun comes out) with so much to see and do.

    We can't wait to go back out to Astoria and see our kids, so sorry we missed you by a couple of days.

    Looking forward to your next adventure.

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  4. That is really neat about the ship there and what is left I loved the tower also that is just beautiful. Now where in the world is Diana gonna be next? lol

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  5. Thats an amazing shipwreck story--
    and your L & C journey is over..dang Ive enjoyed following along on the blog...Great photos and a great Summer you had...So now its anyones guess where you are off to!!
    ps I didnt know if you saw my follow up on the Moth, the range is Mex to Canada, & East coast to the Rockies!! But thats the first One Ive ever seen.
    Safe Travels!

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  6. Love that Astoria Column - you got some great closeups of the wonderful artwork.

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