Cape Disappointment

Sorry if this takes a while to load, lots of pictures on this one. I call this blog post Cape Disappointment, but in reality, the trip encompassed much, much more than just that one area. The title "Mouth of the Columbia" would be more fitting, but sounds unappealing to me.

Hayden and I took a trip down to the Long Beach Peninsula back in January. We stayed at Cape Disappointment State Park in one of the yurts. The yurt was cold and kind of smelled a little. I didn't get any pictures of the yurt, it was kind of underwhelming.

We checked out Long Beach on our first day and did all the tourist stuff there, Marshe's Museum, Ice Cream, Go-carts and drove on the beach a little. Also checked out the stunning Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment at sunset.

We watched Forest Gump on my laptop that night, a first for Hayden.

On the second day we walked out to the beach from our yurt. There were several people digging and using sluice boxes panning for gold. Apparently, this beach has high amounts of fine flour gold that you're allowed to dig for, with the correct permits of course. I had never heard of such a thing. Hayden enjoyed walking up to the different groups of people talking to them about their experiences panning for gold. Most of the folks we talked to were a group from Goldbar WA that were out on a monthly field trip. There is a panning store in Goldbar called Prospectors Plus that supports this panning community. Something I might look into in the future.

After breaking down camp, we went to Waikiki Beach again and hiked up to the lighthouse from there. We stopped at the Lewis and Clark interpretive Center along the way. Kind of fun to have an interpretive center right in the middle of the hike. After the hike, we packed up and drove across the Astoria Bridge and set up camp in Astoria at a Hotel I had booked previously, but not before I took Hayden to see the Goonie's house. We watched the Seahawks - 49ers play-off game in the room and later went to the Pig 'N Pancake to have breakfast for dinner.

On the final day, I took Hayden up to the Astoria Column. After paying the required $2 yearly Astoria Column parking pass and spending another buck or two for a small balsa wood airplane, we made our way up the column. 164 steps later, we found ourselves looking out over Astoria, the Columbia River and even the ocean. Best view in town. Hayden let his plane loose and we watched it fly for like 5 minutes. It flew so far that we completely lost sight of it. It was really fun to watch.

Exploring Astoria Column

After the column, I drove us out to Fort Clatsop for a short visit to see where Lewis and Clark wintered before we headed out to Fort Stevens. At Fort Stevens we checked out the wreck of the Peter Iredale before ending our trip by driving out as far as we could go on the Clatsop Spit on the Jetty Rd where we watched the waves crash on the jetty.

It was a great trip and lots of fun to spend time with my little buddy!

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