Goodbye to Oregon!

Tuesday, August 6 – We are well into our second week of vacation and still driving north on Highway 101 in Oregon. Last night we stayed in Lincoln City OR. There is a large memorial statue to Abraham Lincoln – so I am not sure which came first - the city’s name or the statue!

The road is much less dramatic along this part of the coast. We passed through pine wood forests which have been logged over several times. The logging companies do leave a screen of mature trees along the road so it doesn’t look so bad – but we did see many areas of clear cutting. I wonder why they don’t clean up all the scraps of branches, bushes, and other debris?

We also saw much more farmland and lots of cows. In fact that was our next stop – the Tillamook Cheese Factory. They use some thousands of gallons of milk a day – most of the milk produced in the area ends up in their cheese, ice cream, and other dairy products. We had a delicious hot fudge sundae, several cheese samples, saw the factory production plant where the cheese is made, and bought a few packages of cheese (including cheese curds).

Later we found another spot with easy beach access. We walked down a beautiful trail through the woods and along a rushing creek to get to the ocean. The trees were extremely tall and massive. Many had fallen over and the trunks had interesting holes and crenellations. We later found out they were Sitka Spruce, almost as beautiful as the Redwoods.

On Wednesday we spent some time exploring the Lewis and Clark National Park. The expedition ended here near the town of Astoria in 1806. They came down the Columbia River which empties into the ocean at this point. They were on the north side of the River (now in the state of Washington), but decided to cross the Columbia to establish a camp on the other side (which is now Oregon), They were very friendly with the Indians who advised them that this would be a better place to spend the winter. They built a 6 room log fortress and called it Fort Clatsop after the Native American tribe that lived there. The following spring they set off for home and left this spot to the natives. The fort has been rebuilt several times.

It was very interesting to learn about the voyage of discovery. There are several other stops showing more of the history of that expedition, but we really only spent time at Fort Clatsop. We did drive into Astoria (named after John Jacob Astor, who never lived here, but paid for much of its building to further his enterprises on the west coast). We climbed the 167 stairs of the Astoria Column which is built on one of the highest points in town and provides a spectacular view of the river and all the surrounding country side.. This was our last stop in Oregon, and it is now on to Washington State.