Thursday 9th November 2023
John had a lot of vacation days to take before the end of the year but due to a change at work he was not able to use most of them but he did get to take Thursday and Friday off. We drove to Astoria which is in Oregon State but not a far drive and was the nearest big town.
We drove across the Astoria-Megler bridge that is four miles long and spans the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon. It was very cool, it began quite low and flat at the Washington end but then climbs upwards very dramatically to allow huge tankers and cargo ships to sail under.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria%E2%80%93Megler_Bridge
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| Opened in 1966, it is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. |
We parked and walked a section of the Riverside Walk which is a 12.8 mile path that follows a portion of the Astoria & Columbia River Railroad. In the Summer there is a tram that runs along the route that would be fun. As we walked we heard sea lions. They were very loud!
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| Pigeons |
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| I'll look after your truck mate, payment in chips please |
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| Not a great shot but those lumps are sea lions |
While we thought the sea lions were awesome to see the locals are not happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4z4ufL5TeI
I guess it's a bit like people in New Jersey who did not like the deer who eat all your plants and cause road accidents. Or the squirrels that raid the bird feeders.
After grabbing a coffee at a Starbucks in the Safeway supermarket we headed downtown. It had a nice main street but the rain became quite heavy and as we had Morgan with us and we could not go inside to shelter we had to cut it short.
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| So foggy you can't see all of the bridge |
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| Tankers in the mist |
When we left Washington on the 18th November we once again crossed the Astoria-Megler Bridge. We saw a huge cruise ship docked on the Oregon side just before the bridge. After Googling we found out it was the Carnival Panorama which usually sails between California and the Mexican Riviera. Strange we thought, wonder why she is here? Turns out that she needed some urgent repairs at a shipyard 95 miles up river but her whale tail funnel would not fit under some of the bridges. After thinking they could remove the tail in situ and finding that would not work and after some thought (probably by a lot of over paid men, should have got women to work it out) it was decided she would sail to British Columbia Canada, they would remove the tail then she would sail back to the Portland shipyard, get the repairs carried out then return to British Columbia to get the tail replaced ....all in time for her 23 December Holiday Cruise. Good luck with that! I am sure this story will be continued in the news.
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