Started doing some sketching today in my school planner. You’ll start seeing these pop up from time-to-time :)
Graham, Kellan and I successfully made it to Menomonie. The ride was, fun, pleasently uneventful, and full of typical boy-talk.
We’re chilling in our room at Hotel 6 now, idly researching places to eat. Tomorrow, on to Minneapolis/St. Paul!
Tuesday, March 17
We packed up and checked out of our hotel late morning. After a couple errands (including my purchase of a new Nikon P80), we headed south on Highway 5, en route to Astoria, OR.
Along the way we stopped at Skamokawa park along the Colombia river. It was just barely drizling, and we had a beautiful view of the river and mountains. There was a large, sandy excavation in the middle of the park, and large pieces of dead tree scattered around. All together, it made for a very dramatic scene (Photos here).
Eventually, we arrived in Astoria. A three mile bridge spans the Columbia river and leads into the village. Astoria itself is a beautiful town, perched right along the edge of the river. Standing on the waterfront and dusk, cloud shrouded mountains lay straight ahead, and just to the right the bridge disappears into the distance.
After settling into our room at the Red Lion Inn, which overlooks the river, we left in search of dinner. We ended up eating at a place called Doogers. While the seafood wasn’t spectacular, it was decent, and our waitress was great.
It’s 11 PM now, and I’m tired. Tomorrow we’ll be heading north along the coast, so I’m hoping there will be plenty of great photo opportunities.
Oops! Forgot to post last night!
We had a pretty relaxed day yesterday, but we saw some pretty cool things anyway.
We left the hotel mid to late morning, and walked the couple blocks to the monorail station. On the way in on the Amtrak, we had seen a huge Salvation Army thrift store, so, of course, mom wanted to go there. The monorail was very cool, but very short (less than 2 miles). From there we took a bus most of the way to the thrift store. I’m not going to go into detail about the store, because we wasted too much time there as it is, and I refuse to waste more time writing about it. Ah, it wasn’t that bad.
From there, we walked back downtown, and ate lunch at a great little restaurant called Mediterranean Mix. After our appetites were satisfied with gyros, roast beef sandwiches, and baklava, we headed back out on the street. Some of the highlights of our downtown explorations:
Early evening we headed back the hotel, ate leftover Thai, and got to bed early.
