The dash for home, day 2, Florence, OR to Fortuna, CA, 295 miles. Drove hard, caught some interesting pictures on the fly,,
Saw this great herd of elk, 30 does and one exhausted stag,,,
Little parking lot maintenance, treads getting thin, will they last?
Only one more leg,,,,
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The Dash for Home, day 1, Long Beach, WA to Florence, OR, 211 miles.
Lastime across the Astoria Megler Bridge,,
Since today was a short day, we had time to poke around a bit.
Stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory,,
Fascinating mix of automation and real people,,
Pizza and chocolate shake for lunch,,
Stopped at one more lighthouse, the Yaquina Head Light. This was a great stop, besides the light, we saw a whale, a bald eagle, a paraglide, a parasail, and this really fancy truck,,
Touring to Astoria, 46 miles. Our destination for the day was the maritime museum in Astoria. And the Lightship Columbia.
Lots of boat history to look at,,,,, full size,,,,
Grand Tour Day, 135 miles. All the Model A's on the same road, going to the same place. The destination for the day was Camp 18, a restaurant/museum/place where old logging equipment goes to die.
Big lineup waiting for departure,,, our group in the red shirts,,,
About a two hour drive thru the countryside to Camp 18, gotta love that entrance signpost.
Wood carvings on the front porch,,,
Now that is a door knob....
Old logging equipment everywhere, lots of big iron, this is the biggest band saw I ever saw. (no pun)
More old stuff everywhere,,,
Bunch of hungry loggers,,,
After lunch, made an expedition to Young River Falls, which incidentally is mentioned in the Lewis and Clark logbooks.
But even better, saw salmon spawning in this little tributary, dozens of two foot fish, swirling and circling in shallow water, what a treat.. this picture only shows a few fins,,,
Today was the raffle drawing, I won a distributor!!!! And today, we went to the beach for our last sunset here..... (and ice cream)
Local touring, 27 miles. Off to Cape Disappointment, named by a British captain who was looking for the Columbia River, and thought he had only found a bay, when he actually had found the river and did not know it. Two lighthouses on Cape Disappointment,,,
The North Head Lighthouse,,,
and the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, 2.5 mile hike to this one,,,
Warning sign on the trail,,,
The Cape was also a defensive gun emplacement starting back in the 1800's and up until the end of WWII.
Also at this location, Lewis and Clark Center, this was where their 30 man expedition reached the Pacific Ocean in 1805. Xlnt museum and documentary, forgot to take any pictures, but we did buy a book, need to revisit some of the grade school history which we have forgotten.
This afternoon we visited the cranberry museum. Turns out this area is a major cranberry producer. Lots of bogs. Harvest is just beginning. Nobody harvesting today, but this is what it looks like,,,
Tried the cranberry ice cream, delicious,,,,
For dinner, found a Mexican restaurant, Pat had this little quesadilla,,,
And one more sunset on the beach,,,, see all the cars down there?
Loop Tour, 157 miles. Beautiful sunny day at the beach, we are lucky. Headed NE on 101 past these enormous tidal flats, must be something to see when the tide is coming in.
Finally found Ken's hunting cabin hidden away somewhere in the hills, I don't think I could find it again, we turned around at least 5 times before we found this hidden driveway,,,
Some fine taxidermy at the cabin, and two foot long salmon swimming in the creek, tried to get a salmon picture, none came out...
Then off to the only remaining covered bridge in WA,,,,,
Then the only remaining ferry in WA, quite a treat, 6 Model A's, and some ordinary cars. Fare was only $6 per car, don't think that is a profitable operation.
After the ferry, we followed a group from the Gallopin' Gerties who seemed to know where they were going, and ended up at the Berry Patch restaurant on Hwy 30. We had pie for lunch, seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Back to Long Beach via Astoria and another crossing on the Ilwaco Bridge.
Totally tired, but got another sunset on the beach,,,, lots of cars showed up again and lined up like a drive-in movie to watch the sunset.
Short touring tomorrow....
