Summer Trips, 2019

Summer Trips, 2019

Tacoma

It was time for a short trip and I wanted to take an Amtrak. It was off to Tacoma for an overnight visit. I knew that I wanted to go to the Washington Historical Society Museum and I thought I might like to go to a triple A ball game. Given that the season was nearly over I had only a few choice dates for a game.

I left Vancouver on the 8:38 am train heading north while the sun shone brightly. Half a year ago I took a similar ride up to Olympia on a cold drizzly day. By the time I got to Tacoma it was a bit closer to my first trip in that it was gray and misty. Towards evening the clouds evaporated and it became a nice evening at Cheney Stadium.

From the Amtrak station I headed to the Washington Historical Museum about half a mile away. I spent two hours there looking at the main exhibit. It took us from the geological beginnings of the state along with a bit of paleontology. In my chronological tour I passed exhibits of cultures that existed here long before Europeans showed up. The exhibit tour walked the visitor through things like Tacoma during the Great Depression and the apple growing that is one of the state’s hallmark items of produce. It was a fine set of exhibits, one that the museum can be proud of.

Union Station Tacoma

Tacoma is not a convenient place to drive to. The enormous amount of road construction along with the kazillion exits and on ramps make me appreciate just getting past Tacoma on I5. I don’t get off any of the exits for Tacoma as I am driving-I just putz through until I get to the other side of the city. The stress relief of taking the Amtrak was well worth it. I was to see the city on foot and local mass transit.

Fortunately my motel was within a mile of the museum and back towards the train depot. I was too early to check in so I got a meal at the brew pub a block from the motel.

A large Greek salad and a red curried chicken with rice was a great way to sate pangs until check in time at the motel. I hiked a post-prandial several blocks up a hill to my one night residence which was pleasant enough. I found a light rail stop that headed several stops south to the theater district (and included the museum that I attended only a few hours ago). The motel was up a hill and in the area called the Dome district named after the rather gaudy construct used to entertain the visitors of a variety of venues that a civic center would in other cities. There are those displays of monstrous monster trucks driving over immobile vehicles for instance.

The area surrounding the motel was pretty bleak with vacant lots teeming with the detritus of fast food ventures and Busch Light cans. From the parking lot I could see workers doing something or another on the dome. Even though they were tethered to some (I hope) stable post, it looked pretty scary.

I took a Lyft to the Tacoma Rainier’s game against the Las Vegas Aviators. The season was within a week of the end of its regular season. The team was too far away from the .500 mark to reach the figure. The Aviators were able to stay in first place by soundly beating Tacoma. 

  

I returned to the motel and loafed the rest of the evening watching bad crime shows on the television. The next morning I ate the complimentary breakfast which was significantly better than most motels that are in league with those of my budget level. My train ride home did not come until 7:00pm so I lingered in the motel and it’s near vicinity until the checkout time at noon. I would be left with a full 7 hours of idle daytime to bounce around town lugging a backpack.

For the first time in my life I imagined a portion of the daily life of a homeless person in a large urban area. I had nowhere that I needed to be and nowhere that I could go for some sort of respite except that which I could muster for myself on park benches and the like.

I was not homeless of course and did not suffer the real facts of daily life. I have a place to live and I have an income that is not likely to evaporate. It was just that for 7 hours I had to make due. So I took the light rail to the Theater district which was only notable for the grim nature of this seemingly enterprising location. At least at the light rail stop. Several genuine theaters did exist within fairly short walks. The actual stop was not in a spot that would lure anyone except curious travelers with nowhere else to go. I might add that the light rail service within the city of Tacoma is free so not a bad way for a truly homeless person get around.

Theater District

After about a half an hour searching for a newspaper box that had any of the Seattle newspapers or a mini-mart that sold them I finally found the last one. I found no Tacoma newspapers save for one devoted to the LGBT community. I found it remarkable that newspapers were so difficult to come by. I only wanted one to see the box scores, read editorials and do crossword puzzles. I had one now and headed to the waterfront to a park which was pretty good sized. I walked in the park for a while of enjoying the riverside amble.

I enjoyed it for the mild breeze and warm but not hot temperature. The view was pretty industrial so it was weak from an aesthetic point of view. I found a flattened stone in the shade which functioned well as a seat and spent about half an hour enjoying the newspaper that I found in the fashion that I described above.

A week later I traveled by car up to Seattle to see my daughters. I stayed both nights on a couch at Lucie’s in the Georgetown neighborhood. On the first night one of her friends from Baltimore was visiting. I have unfortunately, forgotten his name but not what he did for us that night. He was here during a three month trip around America and an Asian jaunt. He was about one month into his journeys. More importantly he had been a chef at one of Baltimore’s better restaurants-the Woodberry Kitchen. So…with assistance from many of us, he made Cippiono. (I include the link to provide a context but the recipe there is only an approximation of what he made). It included much fresh seafood and vegetables. My daughter and he bought all of the ingredients and made everything from scratch. Many people, friends of my daughter were there and we ate in the yard with a low keyed party til about midnight.

The nest day Lucie and I lolled around her neighborhood for a while and then went to Lake Washington for a hike and loafed on a bench in front of the lake for a while until it was time for me to go to Kent to pick up my other daughter Hannah, and bring her back to Georgetown for dinner. Since Hannah and Lucie have diet rules we had to be precise in finding a place to eat. We chose Daimonji Sushi & Grill where I was the only one to make a poor choice by selecting a cooked meal. The name has left me now but it was basically fried chicken and rice. I eyed their genuine sushi selections with jealousy as I ate my lousy food. I learned my lesson.

I returned the very pregnant Hannah home to Des Moines, walked Lucie to her overnight dog sitting job, returned to her house and went to sleep. The next morning I dropped Lucie off at work in Pioneer Square at 6:00 am and headed south to Vancouver.

On September 16^th I drove to Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast. I left my place at 10:00am headed for Newport 30 mile to south of Lincoln City. It was raining hard early in my trip but was only cloudy at Salem about 50 miles away and then sunny a half hour later and for the rest of the day.

I stopped at Depoe Bay where waves were really crashing on the shore. At my feet was a swath of basalt maybe as far as 50 feet wide and covering about 2000 feet to my left and right. I was about 50 to 75 feet above the shore line.

The basalt swath of land was porous and as waves crashed into it they forced water into the warren of pathways with the swath. (I have to look up a better geological word than swath). Anyway about once per minute a geyser erupted from the pressurized water that rushed into the pathways within the basalt.

Geyser Photos

I stopped at Siletz Bay as well to watch more wildly splashing waves. At Siletz there were several eruptions of land in the shallow waters near the shore. Now I speculate as to what they are or how they got there. I speculate since I don’t know and what I speculate is that these promontories are residual of volcanic action that took place about a kabillion years ago.

There was a copse growing out of the tops of some of the projections.

Stiletz land formations

I ate poorly done razor clams (fried) at a tacky tourist trap in Lincoln City with the anachronistic name of “Lil’ Sambos. The logo featured a leprechaun with a stack of pancakes and a frolicking tiger.  I suspect that prior to the late 60s the logo was not that of a jolly Hibernian elf.

I stayed at the pleasant Ashley Inn along tourist row in the town. About a year ago I began upgrading my motel choices so relatively speaking, this is luxury living. I saw no exposed fire arms during my visit there.

Out of my window I face west where only about a mile separates this unit from the Pacific Ocean and all of its majesty. Directly in front of me was Coastal Route 101. It is five lanes and when turns are available it is about a mile from where I am staying. Walking across this road provides more peril than I am willing to challenge. On my side of 101 there are only random walkways or places to walk to if I wanted to. This town is not designed for pedestrians. It is a tourist town designed to attract mostly summer visitors curious about the glories of the Oregon coast or the kitsch of the tourism trade or both.

To the east which I can only see from a block or two from the motel is a stunning view once one looks past the trailer parks that are nearly subterranean in the fore ground. Douglas Firs and other flora rise into the coastal range of the Cascades. They look down at the coast almost haughtily as if they know that one day, long ago it was they who were responsible for the magnificent glory of the coastal beauty. They are silent but they know.

I was at latitude 44 degrees 59”24.17 and longitude 124 degrees, 0’17.85”

I came with some food so as to provide succor to those 8:00 pm pangs. That way I prevented the purchase of a badly done pizza slice or a bag of Doritos. Amongst my food stuffs were a couple of tomatoes from my little garden. These were of the Serratt Cluster species-about the size of a tennis ball and pulpier than water so they were quite good. I sliced them, salted them added some pepper then ate them with some cheddar. They sated those munchies quite well.

On Tuesday morning I awoke to some steady rain at 7:00 am and it continued until I left around 10. I had a breakfast of creamed sausage and biscuit since no eggs were available. It was an adequate perk associated with motels around the country. There were no complimentary issues of USA Today and so no crossword puzzles to complete. My headline news had to come from the master of such-CNN. I left Lincoln City no wiser than when I arrived.

So on September 17 I drove north in what was a driving rain on the coastal highway. Typically I’m sort of “called” to look at the Pacific whenever a view is available. This time I noticed the mountains to the east. In them on this day were fog patches that would make good photographs. Unfortunately I am not of the spirit to take photographs during a down pour. In those same coastal range rises were the billions of Douglas Firs reaching over a hundred feet into the air and often gorging themselves on the foggy clouds in their canopy.

Anyway I got a break from rain long enough to stop for a walk in Wheeler on the Nehalem Bay. There were several good birds and here are a couple of shots to prove it.

Heron chasing and Egret from its hunting grounds

I also stopped in Warrenton essentially to go to Ft. Stevens State Park. The first directional sign said that it was 10 miles away. It was not. Later a sign said the next left would lead to the park. It did not. The next 7 potential lefts were dead end residential streets. The 8^th included a sign indicating to NOW make my left turn. I did. I drove several miles along this road with no sign of the park. Now I had now driven about 15 miles since the first 10 mile suggestion. It also started raining so I turned around to head to Astoria.

I reached my motel after making a wrong turn on 101 and heading across the bridge back to Washington. I was not thrilled by adding 10 more miles on my trip but I also love going over the bridge which I have featured in these pages several times. It is the Astoria-Megler Bridge which is a cantilever span about 5 miles across the Columbia River. I stayed at the Astoria Riverwalk motel again which I described several blogs ago.

It was dry when I got out of my car to take some bird photos. About 10 minutes into the walk it began raining so I retreated to the car for an umbrella. It continued to rain off and on as I walked downtown. It was coming down pretty hard when I stopped in at the Astoria Brewery Pub where I sat at the bar waiting for service that never got there. Perky young people came in and were served post haste. After about 10 minutes I put my coat on and left. The perky young bartender was probably glad and would then be able to attend to fellow perky young people.

Later I walked to a bar close to my motel room and talked with Randy for a while. He had been to Baltimore several times while in the army. Later on I had a beer at the Workers Tavern where on Sunday nights they have Meat Bingo.

Just before securing my room I stopped at a river side sea food shack and had some very superior clam chowder. I determined to go back for a regular meal and perhaps some chowder to take home with me.

Since the next day promised significant rain I decided to go to historical sights. So on Wednesday I took about a mile walk along the river at ebb tide and found around 25 little Sanderlings prancing along the beach as the soft waves lapped benignly on the sand.

Sanderling

I went to Ft. Clatsop that harbored the Corp of Discovery for the winter of 1805-18o6. It was the last place they stopped prior to heading home from their famous expedition. A well informed ranger with lots of personality gave us an overview of the fort and how the current one replicated the original (or didn’t). It was located in the midst of a rainforest. While the sun shown above the canopy of 100 year old Douglas Firs, it seemed to be raining in languorous ways as breezes shook water from overhead. Then I walked down to where they kept their canoes and I took some photos.

Ft. Clatsop

From there I went to the visitor center where a small museum existed with curated materials from the Clatsop tribe and a few remnants of articles that were either from the exploration or were contemporary artifacts used for the intention of display more than concrete fact.

It was noon when I had completed that mission and was now on my way to the Columbia River Marine Museum. While the clouds became grayer and denser it was not raining and the sun obliquely shone enough to keep it warm. No raincoat was necessary for warmth or to keep dry.

The Columbia River is a long and massive river flowing from British Columbia southward until it meets what is now the border between Oregon and Washington where it bends at nearly 90 degrees to head west and out to the ocean near Astoria where the museum is located. It has been an important travel/trade route for about 230 years. Ship building along the Columbia made communities along the river’s path, very important during each of the World Wars.

The museum reflects those histories as well as those of the native tribes that have built their cultures along the river for centuries. It was a very well appointed museum with excellent displays and informed staff. Both of my historical ventures of September 18^th were well worth the effort.

I went back to the Northwest Wild Produce for my dinner. That was the shack I mentioned above. This time I got a crab melt using local Dungeness Crabs. The woman serving me went back to the kitchen after getting my order. She began crunching a crab to excise the meat, then cooked it in preparation for my meal of French bread along with a couple of pickled asparagus spears and chips. Nothing was prepared in advance and sitting in a stainless steel bin until requested.

It stayed pretty sunny all afternoon. I had pretty much accomplished all I wanted to do on this visit. Nothing is perfect but I did pretty darned well. My feet were killing me yet I still, at 5:00 pm, decided to walk a half a mile to a pub and enjoy an IPA which I did not need but certainly wanted. I became prey to my lesser mind and did just that. Well, nothing bad happened and by 6:15 I was back in my dormitory for the night.

The ride back to Vancouver includes about 60 miles of state road 4 and goes along the northern side of the Columbia. That drive is a good way to end a summer of trips and that is just what I did.