My littler sister is in town for the weekend.

Okay, a nice one this time.

Damn it!  I said a nice one!

Happy to be standing with the Timbers Army for this game.

You haven’t heard potty mouth until you hear a ten thousand people chanting it together.

Still fun, even though they lost.  The Timbers played their hearts out.

What are you doing on Saturday, July 11? You know what you totally SHOULD do? Go to the Mississippi Street Fair.

Last year’s Mississippi Street Fair kicked a ton of ass. It was hundreds of artists and vendors and BBQ purveyors, all packed within five or six blocks. People brought their babies and their dogs, and it was sunny, and it was about as damned wholesome as you could hope for.

And this year, this year, THIS YEAR, I will have a booth! I’ll be selling some paintings and stuff!

For the past few weeks, I have been painting nearly every night trying to get ready. I’m freaking out a little. And I’m working on a logo so I can hand out cards. If selling silly paintings goes well, I’ll enter more street fairs. And do a website. And go on Etsy. And then of course, world domination will follow soon after.

So you should totally come say hi! I don’t know where my booth is located yet, but I’ll update when I find out. Look for Crafty Smackdown! If you bring your babies, I will kiss them!

We spent a few hours at the Scandinavian Fest, eating Swedish meatballs and marveling at the wooden shoes (they are lighter than they look!) We headed back into town and went to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Evidently, the “bar,” where the Columbia meets the Pacific is one of the most treacherous areas in the world. Wikipedia says since 1792, approximately 2000 large ships have sunk in and around the Columbia Bar. And frequently, the weather sucks, too.

The museum had lots of boats.

And lamps.

And canned seafood wrappers.

And more boats in perilous situations. I almost felt a little queasy just looking at this.

“This is no time for a swim Fred.  Stop being a putz.”

This is the WLV 604 Columbia Lightship docked outside the museum. They parked this “floating lighthouse” at the mouth of the river and it was in service from 1951 to 1979. They had 10 guys on this ship at all times. We were able to walk through it. It was a bit cramped inside for living space. And could you imagine trying to sleep through the foghorn? And I think I heard that this ship is not weighty and smooth like larger ships. It bobbed like a cork in the waves. Huuuurp!

Eventually, the lightship was retired and replaced by this LNB, also pictured. “Large Navigational Buoy.” I know you didn’t know what an LNB was.

After the museum, we headed back to the hotel to sit down for a while and figure out where to go for dinner. We were in the mood for Italian, so we decided to go to Fulio’s. We had to get there early because it was Saturday night and we didn’t have a reservation. The food was pretty good, but it felt a little too expensive.

It was still early when we got out, so we walked around town a little, then headed back to the hotel. We read the books we had purchased earlier and hit the hay.

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and got a pastry at the Blue Scorcher Bakery Cafe. It was yet another example of a business doing it right. It was well located, it was a cute and comfortable, and Dave had the best coffee of the trip. A “dry” Americano. An espresso without much water. He talked about that coffee for hours.

We totally enjoyed Blue Scorcher. I love inspiring businesses. I want one too. We had a couple good-to-great coffee experiences on this trip. Astoria does not want for coffee or cafes.

So I have had a pot slowly simmering on the mental back burner…how do we get into this town? If we do coffee, we will have to do something different or better than what is already there. There are already a lot of people “doing it right.” But I also wonder what that downtown area might NEED. A breakfast place? A gourmet deli? A little grocery/sundry store? A local craft consignment shop? I am thinking about this.

After our pastry breakfasts and lovely coffees, we strolled over to the Sunday market.

It was bustling. I imagined spending my Sundays here.

We walked through each row of white tents as people were still setting up. It was a combination of farmers market and art fair. Quite nice.

From there, we got in the car. After seeing the photos and reading the stories of the sunken ships at the museum, I wanted to get as close to the Columbia bar as we could. We drove around to Warrenton and through Fort Stevens State Park. We were surprised to find a giant campground there. But it had hundreds of camp sites, all tightly packed, and lots of RVs. Not our type of camping. I’m glad we got a look at it so we know not to camp there.

The red arrow above points to this platform. They built jetties on the north and south sides of the Columbia so the river wouldn’t get lost.

From that platform, I took these photos. Note the blue sky.

Amazing. I wish we had more time to go for a walk here. But we had many stops to make before heading home.

South Jetty, Columbia River from Mile73 on Vimeo.

After getting as close as we could to the mouth of the river on the south side, we got in the car and headed north to Washington.

Look familiar? You can click the photo for enormo size. Taken by our Official Road Photographer, Dave.

I wanted to get to Cape Disappointment. This is where most unmoored ships had historically drifted and beached themselves. I like that the name reminds me of a Jewish mother from New York, “Of all the capes, you’ve been such a disappointment.”

We drove around the loop of route 100 in Fort Canby State Park. We stopped at a lighthouse. We thought maybe it was Cape Disappointment. But it wasn’t until we got to a map that we realized we had visited the North Head Lighthouse, on the ocean side. Cape Disappointment Lighthouse is on the river side.

We got out and went for a walk.  Looks like maybe the ocean though the trees. Like it might be impressive or something.

Okay, pretty impressive.

North Head, not Cape Disappointment. I wanted to see the bar.  And where all the ships get wrecked.  Sigh.  We will try harder to get it right next time.

This is looking south, towards Oregon. I just want you to hold this image in your mind.

Then we drove to Long Beach, Washington, where we stood in front of the world’s largest frying pan. Because that’s what you do in Long Beach, Washington.

We went to Marsh’s Free Museum. By this time, I was getting a little tired and hungry. Which equals crabby and insufferable. But this place was surreal.

At this point, I was coming down from the coffee and sugar high, and I was realizing I had a 130 mile drive to get home. Remember that photo of the sunny beach looking south towards Oregon?

Ha.  Cute, huh?  We had one more place to stop before heading home.

Fish and chips. Across the street from the Maritime Museum. Very good. Get the half order. Even if you are hungry. You don’t need more than the half order. We both got a full order because I was we were tired and hungry and crabby. And I believe we both ate everything because it was good. But we felt like gluttonous piggies after.

We took a roundabout way, route 202, to 47, to 30, to get home. We just wanted to see what the woods looked like, and where the smaller roads lead.

We passed by the Jewel Meadows Wildlife Area. We did see some elk, but they were so far away that even with the zoom on my camera, there was no way to get a good photo. But here’s the last photo I took on this trip until my camera battery died. Night night, camera.

Oregon looks pretty good, don’t it?

Chapter Sixteen: Astoria Midsummer Scandinavian Fest Part 1, Part 2
Chapter Fifteen: Camp Creek, OR
Chapter Fourteen: Camping On The Coast, Part 1, Part 1.5, Part 2
Chapter Thirteen: The Gorge, Stonehenge, Hood River, Mt Hood
Chapter Twelve: The Oregon Coast
Chapter Eleven: Oregon Wine Country (hic)
Chapter Ten: Astoria, Oregon
Chapter Nine: Panther Creek Campground, WA
Chapter Eight, Green Canyon Campground, Mt Hood, Oregon
Chapter Seven, Spruce Run Campground, Coast Range, Oregon
Chapter Six, Bend, Oregon
Chapter Five, Seattle, Washington
Chapter Four, Mt Saint Helens, Washington
Chapter Three, The Gorge and Hood River, Oregon
Chapter Two, The North Coast and Astoria, Oregon
Chapter One, Waipi’o Valley, Big Island, Hawaii

Two road trip weekends in a row. The cat has been very close to smothering us to death in our sleep from want of attention. Because if you are a cat, and your humans callously abandon you two weekends in a row, what choice do you have but to kill them while they sleep? Maybe hook your claws into their sweatpants as they defenselessly brush their teeth? Maybe bite their ankles and make them bleed as they pass by? Indeed. The arsenal of options is near limitless when you are a kitty scorned.

This past weekend, Dave planned in advance to go to the Astoria Midsummer Scandinavian Fest. He’s a festy guy. He’d be hard pressed to miss a fest. Even one 100 miles away. Thankfully, we both really like Astoria, and we wanted to get an opportunity to spend more time there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Weekend write up tomorrow. After Dave the Viking and I get some much needed rest.

I just made this up for dinner tonight. It was delicious. I’m a tortilla soup genius.

4 Cups of chicken broth (or veggie)

2 small tomatoes

1 small sweet onion

2 ears corn on the cob

1 small can of El Pato Hot Mexican Style Tomato Sauce

Tortilla chips

10 or so sprigs of cilantro

Half a pound of precooked chicken (or not)

Salt to taste

Sour cream and/or cheese for garnish

Now. We actually had homemade chicken broth. Dave had boiled the carcass (what a great word) of a leftover roasted chicken. But we didn’t have enough homemade broth. So we used some bullion stock also. As the broth was beginning to simmer, I broke up half of the tortilla chips and put them in the pot so they would disintegrate and thicken the soup a little.

I diced the onion and fried it up. I think the scent of onions frying in butter has to be one of the best smells ever. If they made a perfume of it, I’d wear it. Maybe.

When onions where a little brown and roasty, I threw them in the soup pot. Then I chopped the tomatoes and threw those in the pot. Then I shucked the corn on the cob, and cut the kernels off with a knife. This made a mess. Then I fried the corn kernels in the leftover onion grease until they were a little brown and roasty. I threw the corn in the pot.

These are all just the veggies that I like. You can throw anything you want in there. Peppers would be fine, squash, zucchini, jalapeños, etc. I think I remember my culinarily gifted friend Keiko using okra in her tortilla soup. Basically, you can put anything you want in there.

For the El Pato Hot Mexican Style Tomato Sauce, use your best judgement. It’s spicy. I used about two tablespoons worth and that was enough. You may like more heat. But I suggest adding it in small amounts and tasting until you get the flavor you want. If you’re not into spicy at all, you can just use regular tomato sauce and no one will make fun of you. Maybe.

Let it simmer and meld a bit. Add as much salt as you need. Here I pulled the leaves off the cilantro and threw them in the pot. After about 10 minutes, I added the precooked chicken and let it heat through.

I took the rest of the tortilla chips and broke them up into the bottom of the bowls. I ladled the soup over the chips. Added a blorp of sour cream on top. Cheese if you want. A few more cilantro leaves to make it pretty.

This was really quite easy and I have to say, damn tasty. If I’m going to be a genius, I may as well be a tortilla soup genius.

Guess how much a heart attack and three days in the hospital cost.

Really, guess.  A stent, two nights in ICU, then one more night in a regular hospital.  Are you guessing?

I estimated $10,000 a night.

Ready?

$115,000.  One hundred fifteen thousand dollars.

That is the claim the hospital send to my parent’s insurance.   $115k.  Now, the insurance company negotiates a discount.  Care to guess how much that was?  $96,000.  Wow.  If you don’t have insurance, you don’t get that discounted rate.  You are on your own.

So, yay that my parent’s have insurance. But holy crap if they didn’t.

The goal this summer is to go camping once a month. We had great luck with the weather on our last trip. It was chilly and windy, but there were bright, crystal-blue skies on the coast and we couldn’t believe our good fortune. So for this trip, I got a little overconfident. It had barely rained in Portland all week. 30% chance of precipitation on a mountain means probably no rain, right? And “chance of thunderstorms” means there probably won’t be a thunderstorm, right? Right? Doesn’t the power of positive thinking count for anything?

Read the rest of this entry »

It will ALMOST be in the 50s!

Let’s go sleep outside!  On the side of a mountain!  There might be snow at 8000 ft!

Look for the write up next week, if I don’t lose my fingers to frostbite.  Maybe I’ll be able to type it out with my nose.  But I will probably lose my nose to frostbite also.  Which will be awesome.