Spring Break... Forever!

Despite the fact that things are clearly on track to beat the current record (27 days of rain in March in Portland), I have been traveling so much the last 6 or 7 months that I was looking forward to spending spring break right here in Oregon instead of going someplace sunny, warm, or dry. Because of that, and the fact that I am so completely behind on work, I didn't think that if I went anywhere too far afield I would be able to enjoy it all that much anyway. But I did go for the customary weekend hike on Sunday-- this time to a local spot that is very popular with the tourists-- Multnomah Falls. It is about a 20 minute drive up the great Columbia River Gorge and the 2nd highest waterfall in the US-- very impressive and very beautiful in real life, but impossible to do justice to with a phone picture (here is one I took peering over the top looking down, but you can see others that don't do it justice here as well).The best thing about it is that-- despite the fact that there are TONS of people mulling around at the base of this waterfall (complete with gift shop, full parking lot, etc.)-- if you hike approximately 1 mile *passed* the falls, you will see only about 20 people, and if you hike any further than that, you might run into only one or two. Yet there are a bunch of trails up there, many of which are flanked by additional very beautiful waterfalls. One section we climbed, aptly named The Elevator Shaft, was a gigantic, steep rockfall that spanned roughly 1000 ft of elevation. I don't know when it happened, but long enough ago that all the rocks are covered in a think layer of velvety moss (nature's carpeting) which makes for super fun climbing. Once on top of Larch Mountain, there is a lattice of trails and a beautiful recently reconstructed lodge owned by one of the hiking associations in Oregon that, if I become a member, I can stay at and take visitors to! While walking around up there, we kind of let ourselves get a bit lost knowing it would be easy to get found, and stumbled on a stretch of trail where someone had hung christmas ornaments from the tree boughs. The whole day was full of these kind of delights, not the least of which was the 30 minutes of sunshine during our descent along the creek....
After taking Sunday off, I decided I needed to really crank on some work, but that since it was Spring Break, that could be anywhere! I decided to head NW of Portland out to the town of Astoria-- the oldest settlement in America west of the Rocky Mountains, and the site where Lewis and Clark first laid eyes on the Pacific Ocean after their long journey. (Here is my view of what they saw that cold wet day, although the bridge wouldn't be built until about 160 years later). Jefferson had asked them to "to explore the Missouri River, & such principal stream of it as, by its course & communication with the water of the Pacific ocean may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." And so they did!
Astoria sits on a cape overlooking the mouth of the Columbia river and the town exudes a terrific, strange charm. I hung out for a two-day work retreat (I cannot, in good conscience, recommend the hostel in town-- better to camp or pony up the dough for a real motel) and had dinner in the evenings with my friend Dan who was teaching a boat safety course there for the week. The town felt familiar, which I now realize might be because Goonies was filmed there, but originally it was mainly built on planks over the water. Signs scattered along the pier frequently refer to people fishing directly through holes in the wooden sidewalk prior to a couple of fires that devastated the town and canneries and forced them to dredge up the river enough to build houses and businesses on more solid ground. Now, like many other places in Oregon where the fishing companies have relocated and the timber industry has become largely automated, the major economic hope is likely tourism. In light of that, I am pretty sure this town of ~10,000 people had more museums per capita than any place I have ever been. I didn't go to any of them, of course, but I had a good excuse-- I was working! But I did thoroughly enjoy exploring the town on an evening walk both days-- long live spring break!!!