ON the Columbia River

H wanted to visit the Maritime museum (again) so we booked this one night in Astoria, OR at a fancy hotel built in 2005 over the river on the old pilings to look like the original Union Fisherman’s Cooperative Packing  Co. , one of 39 canneries here in the 1880s.    No canneries left here now.   We’ve been fishing from here over that sand  bar years ago.   Many hundreds of ship wrecks on the map in the museum. 
 The 4 mi Astoria  Medlar Bridge was completed in 1966 to complete the last gap in highway 101 along the west coast,  from WA to OR. 
The blip…. We stopped in small town Ilwaca on the river for an excellent knitting shop ,  and then spent hours at the maritime museum in charming sort of Victorian/ San Francisco looking.. Astoria.   Got to tour the last Columbia lightship anchored at the treacherous mouth of the Columbia til 1979.   The museum has all sorts of records and videos of the most dangerous and totally terrifying rescues of ships trying to pass the bar at this entrance where the river that begins in BC meets the Pacific Aocean.   The training for all the rescue operations here drawing brave people from all over is unbelievable ( to me) .  
 You can see some of the container ships waiting to leave in the last photo from our balcony …each gets a specially trained pilot til they are out in the ocean 5 miles. ..  in other trips we’ve followed the Lewis and Clark expedition to here ….and we drove by their last camp on the WA side today.    
Went for another perfect dinner…. 1 1/2 block walk  in lashing rain and wind.  The restaurant had many reservations cancelled due to this horrid weather.  
I want to see a big ship go by … ( like the one in the photo taken from the lightship) …..we have the names and shipping  info and the hotel supplies binoculars ( but we have our own) but I think not in this weather.    Can’t see too far either.   
There are lots of cormorants on this bridge.    They like it here and it’s become a problem..  If you are interested…..
I’ll stop.  A fine day!   Different body of water.