How Big is the River

These photos are of ships in the Columbia River main shipping channel at Astoria. My eldest daughter, Cathy, lives in Texas with her husband Tim. He's also my son-in-law, as I remind him whenever I call. But, that's off the subject. I have often tried to explain to Cathy and Tim how amazingly wide the Columbia River really is. I first saw this spectacle when I was about 10 or 11 when my folks had taken a vacation to Idaho. Since my mother was a teacher, and she LOVED US History, she always tried to make our vacations into an educational experience. I am very grateful now, but at the time I usually agreed with my dad when he said "Uh oh, here comes another hysterical (historical) marker." Of course, the Lewis & Clark expidition was an all time favorite of Mom's and we followed (more or less) the trail as much as we could that one summer. I have to admit that two things stand out in my mind. The first was the road along the gorge with the holes in the tunnel (this was 1954-1955) and the wonderful view of the river along the way. As we approached Astoria, my mother told me how really BIG the river was, but I had no idea what she meant until I saw it! To really impress this on my mind we rode the old ferry, which is now long gone and replaced by the Megler Bridge, across to the Washington State side and then rode it back again. Mike also rode that same ferry about the same time with his parents. We share that memory and, just this weekend, were trying to remember where that ferry was lodged.

This past Sunday was a very lazy day. The weather just plain sucked to start with and then I wasn't feeling good and didn't take my usual run. Instead, after breakfast, I fell asleep on the couch (fire in the woodstove) and slept until 1:00pm. By that time we needed to escape the house for a while and Mike suggested the Astoria Maritime Museum. What a cool idea! We toured the now-retired Columbia Light Boat. This is a small ship that used to act as a floating beacon for the ships coming across the bar into the river. That is where I snapped these photos of the river. There were 1/2 dozen or so ships anchored in the channel. I thought it was a good prespective to show the magnitude of the river and rather a nice sight also. I love watching the river on my way to work and wondering what cargo they are bringing or taking back. Some I know from the shape of the ship, but others are a mystery. After the tour of the Columbia we spent alomst 2 hours in the Museum looking at all the wonderful displays. It was well worth our time and very interesting to see. We tried to buy an historical map of the hundreds of shipwrecks in the seas around the bar and up the mouth of the Columbia but were unable to find it in the Museum store. That will be another adventure for another stormy weekend.