Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in Gallery, Part 3.
The next morning, we slept in a bit and then cleaned up all of our stuff so that the housekeeping staff wouldn't trip over it. Then, we took a little drive to get an early lunch at the Three Rivers Resort beteween Forks and La Push. We had some surprisingly good burgers. Like everything else in Forks, the whole place was Twilight-themed, because the Twilight novels are set in and around Forks (there's not much sun, you see, so the vampires like it). Anyway, Ken had a Werewolf burger, but resisted the temptation to take his picture by a life-sized cut-out of the beautiful Cedric Diggory (erm, Edward).
After lunch, we headed to the coast and stopped at Rialto Beach. At the beach, we decided to hike out to Hole-in-the-Rock, a formation about 1.5 miles north of parking lot. The tide was still in, so we couldn't walk on the sand. Instead, we had to walk on the loose stones further up the beach, which turned out to be harder work that we thought it would be. There's some HUGE driftwood on these beaches, whole big trees piled up and tangled together. In a few cases, we climbed over the driftwood to avoid getting wet, but eventually we got wet anyway when a big wave surprised us.
As we reached Hole-in-the-Rock, we got the chance to chat with a few groups of backpackers who had been out camping further up the coast. Apparently, you can camp right on the beach, as long as you know what to expect from the tides (better set up your tent above high tide). It's possible to walk around some of the headlands at low tide, but the headland right near Hole-in-the-Rock had short, steep trail over it, which we climbed up just to see what it looked like. It wouldn't have been too much fun with a 40-pound pack.
Once we got back to the car, we headed further down the coast, stoppping at a few other beaches along the way. A few of these we looked at from the road, but we did stop and do some walking at some of them (including Beach 4). For dinner, we stopped at the Kalaloch Lodge, a National Park concessionaire in the middle of nowhere. We had hoped to hike a bit more and then eat, but they were booked up later in the evening, so we had to eat immediately. The food was expensive and mediocre, and the service was worse than the food. Ken left feeling ripped off.
After dinner, it was starting to get dark, so we drove straight back up the coast to Forks. Once we got into town, we stopped at the grocery store to buy some breakfast (pre-packaged scones) and post cards. We also got some gas for the Jeep and tried to clean off the thick crust of smushed bugs on the windshield. Back at the hotel, we packed things up and wrote some postcards.
Friday morning, we slept in a little, got the stuff into the car, and headed south out of town. On the way, we dropped off the post cards at the post office and drove around town a little (accidentally visiting the high school and middle school). We also stopped at the grocery store/outfitter and bought a black shower curtain to throw over our stuff in the back seat (since not everything fits in the trunk). Along with the black interior and tinted windows on the Jeep, the shower curtain makes it difficult to tell that anything is back there.
Since we had already seen everything along the coast in the vicinity of Olympic, we kept driving until we were past Aberdeen, a few hours south. Eventually, we stopped for lunch in Raymond, at a medicore diner. Then, we spent a while at the Willapa Seaport Museum, a neat little local museum with displays on everything from fishing boats to the late 19th century timber industry. Unfortunately, we forgot to take any pictures.
After leaving the museum, we got back on the road and headed further south, stopping in Long Beach. There, we walked on the boardwalk briefly, and then spent an hour at the World Kite Museum. Although the museum wasn't very large, they had a bunch of interesting displays, including a whole room about the use of kites in WWII and examples of various types of kites from around the world (including some 3D kites).
By then, it was time to find our hotel and get some dinner. We made it the rest of the way down the coast to the Washington border at the Columbia River. There, we went across the huge Astoria-Megler bridge and into Astoria. This was once apparently called the "bridge to nowhere" because there's basically nothing across the river from Astoria. Until it was built in the 1960s, the only way across was via ferry. If the signs are to be believed, the bridge will be under construction (with one lane closed) until sometime in 2014, for repainting.
In Astoria, we found our hotel, a B&B called the Rose River Inn. We got checked in and found our room, and then headed into downtown Astoria (4-5 blocks away) to find dinner. We ended up at Baked Alaska. The group ahead of us made a big deal about wanting a table that overlooked the river, but it turns out that almost all of the tables do. We had a great meal, including a nice bottle of wine (their entire wine list was $25/bottle) and a really nice dessert.
After dinner, we wandered around downtown Astoria, browsing in a few of the stores that were still open. For a while, we toyed with walking up the river to a beer festival that was going on, but eventually we decided against it and we went back to the B&B. There, we picked Spaceballs out of their collection of over 400 DVDs and watched it before heading to bed.
Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the B&B. After breakfast, we packed up the car and then walked back into downtown Astoria, to see it in the daylight and take some pictures. Then, we headed off in search of the Goonies house. Goonies was filmed in and around Astoria in 1984.
Once we found the house, we visited historic Pier 39. This is the former site of the Hanthorn Cannery, and now it's a combination of retail development (coffee shop, law office) and the Bumble Bee Cannery Museum. The museum is a rather strange combination of displays and junk (sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're looking at part of the museum or just something that someone shoved in the corner of the warehouse and forgot). Still, it was neat. There were various old wooden fishing boats, early outboard motors, fishing gear, plus pictures and artifacts from when the cannery was operating.
After finishing up at the museum, we stopped by the Astoria Column, and then headed back to vicinity of the B&B to get lunch at the Blue Scorcher Bakery Cafe. This is a granola-type cafe/coffee shop that's also an employee-owned co-op. The food was good. Ken had a toasted cheese sandwich with pesto, and discovered Virgil's Gourmet Root Beer. The whole place had an interesting vibe: nothing was disposable, you bus your own table, and there's a even a big play area for kids full of old furniture and toys.
Then, we headed off to visit a bunch of sites related to Lewis and Clark. We had already seen the start of their journey while biking the Katy Trail and at the Arch in St. Louis in July, so now we wanted to see the end of the journey. Our first stop was back in Washington state, at Cape Disappointment State Park. This is where Lewis and Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean. There's a good-sized National Park Service visitor center. We were struck by the amount of planning (and luck) that were necessary to make the expedition successful. They almost didn't make it.
We also saw the site of the Dismal Nitch, where the whole party was stuck for most of a week due to storms, unable to get onto land and unable to make it out the mouth of the Columbia. For that whole week, they camped in the rain with all of their stuff on top of a pile of driftwood, which floated whenever the tide came in. There's not much left of the nitch: today, it's a highway rest area just east of the Astoria-Megler bridge. (On the way between Cape Disappointment and the Dismal Nitch, we stopped at Fort Columbia State Park, which was mostly closed and a bit of a disappointment.)
Next, we headed back across the bridge and south through the outskirts of Astoria to Fort Clatsop, which is where the Lewis and Clark party wintered before heading back east. There was a museum and a replica fort.
After finishing up on the museum, we continued down the coast. Eventually, we got dinner at Angelina's Pizzeria and Cafe in Seaside. We weren't sure what to expect from pizza in a tourist town, but it was really good: we had The Lombardia (prosciutto, onion, gorgonzola, and olive oil).
Then, Julie decided that she just had to see Haystack Rock, so we drove down to Cannon Beach, got a bit lost, and then had to drive all of the way back through town to find parking. Eventually, we found the beach, and it was worth the view.
After that, it was time to head to Portland. The drive back was kind of interesting: Hwy 26 is a curvy, hilly road through logging country. There's almost nothing on the way. It's 2-lane with intermittent passing lanes on long hills, but there's also a lot of traffic because it's the main route from Portland to the coast.
When we found our Days Inn on the far side of Portland, it turned out to be in a somewhat, erm, marginal neighborhood. The hotel itself was clean and in good shape (clearly well-managed), but we decided to empty the car anyway. Then, we got in contact with both Sean and Jean and made plans for Sunday. And, since we were out of clothes, we headed into the neighborhood and found a laundromat that was still open at 9:00pm. Busy day!