I did the things, to be sure, and ate the foods, with delight. But the emotional journey and ups and down, the growth in reframing inconveniences as opportunities instead of small catastrophes, sort of mimics the story of Astoria, and I pulled from the perseverance of the people who survived the unthinkable to manage my emotional tribulations.
The trip had been planned for months, as is my way, but a number of factors had me in a state of stress prior to departing. For one, I had multiple challenging personnel issues at work that were weighing heavily on my mental state and taking up a lot of my thinking capacity. While I know I am not seriously considering quitting, it does seem like if I could find a way to make the same comfortable living with writing, that would be far more preferred. Romantically, I've been in a weird purgatory state that I supposed is largely self-imposed, or at least, I could break out if I really wanted to, but for some reason, I'm stubbornly allowing myself to reside in that space even though I find it hugely unpleasant. But even if I could bring myself to do it, breaking out of that state would not instantly solve the underlying pain of being single and not wanting to be. My ever-present ambitions in constantly changing topics and talents provides rabbit holes for me to utilize to feel productive while actually procrastinating on actually finishing whatever I've set out to do.
So as I finished packing the night before my flight, and even as I drove to the airport, I was aware of the intrusive thoughts and my heightened stress level, both of which needed to be calmed for this trip to have the significance I wanted for it and to achieve my objective: finish and set for publishing my manuscript.
Two mimosas into the flight, I was starting to feel a little bit better, and when the flight attendant apologized for running out of champagne, I switched to a red wine to round me off before I had to sober up for the drive. The alcohol and first class service helped take the edge off for me, and I settled into the book I was reading for additional info on my subject of study.
Upon arriving in Portland, I was fighting travel stress as I walked the long corridors of the airport to the rental car center. Avis had my car ready for me but it was an EV, which instantly gave me range anxiety knowing the distance I'd be traveling. I tried to change my car on the app but, as is typical of Avis, the app didn't want to log me in and sent me through a spiral of infuriating technical issues that didn't need to be at all. I finally gave up and decided to take the chance on the less than 300 mile range, and I'd figure out how to charge it in Astoria if needed. Or I'd let myself be stranded and have another reason to hate Avis. (I only use them because that's what my company uses so my points are through that. Otherwise, I much prefer National.)
(Partial) Day 1: The Grotto (and especially the Labyrinth) - 12,191 steps
Before heading to Astoria, I had planned for myself a quick stop to the nearby Grotto. I don't recall how I had originally learned about this place, but it was a very short drive from the airport and I figured it'd be good to stretch my legs before the drive. The Grotto itself was very cool, but not as dramatic as I perhaps had hoped. I spent most of my visit wandering the Upper Gardens which features lots of religious sculptures and places as well as gorgeous trees and a small stream. I knew I wanted to do the Labyrinth, so I headed straight there, stopping only occasionally to take in the fresh air or snap a scenic photo.
There were two women there when I walked up, one was sitting while her companion was walking the Labyrinth. I gave her space while taking a few pictures on the side, and once they left, I embarked on my Labyrinth journey.
I assumed the labyrinth would wind around the outside and eventually nearing and then entering the center. Instead, it actually took me quickly right next to the center, and then out again. I noticed that there were a lot of sharp switchbacks right away in rapid succession. As I continued on, the distance between the switchbacks lengthened. I imagined this was by design, a way of calling our attention to the quick turns as we got into the groove, pulling us out of our intrusive thoughts. The walk felt more meditative as the long stretches grew longer. When I made it to the center, I did feel a bit transformed, and certainly calmer, almost feeling achieved (even though all I had done was walk on a given path). My desire to capture the moment prompted a quick selfie, after which I returned my phone to my pocket and allowed myself to focus on the nature around me for a few moments. When I was
What a weird experience! Or rather, set of weird experiences, as there were so many emotions felt along a relatively short and exteriorly uninteresting journey. As I walked away towards another part of the garden, I considered that I wouldn't want to walk a labyrinth regularly, at least not of that scale, because I didn't like the switchbacks; they halted my movement in a way that actually felt unnatural and uncomfortable for my hips. But the meditative state achieved by following a pre-established path so that I didn't have to think about things like watching cars at street crossings or making decisions about which way to go could be recreated in other ways.
The rest of the gardens were beautiful but I didn't have much to note, other than overhearing a passing woman say to her friend that she felt like she was in Twilight, which I totally understood. We were, in a way, since much of it was filmed in Oregon.
My drive was through wet, foggy conditions, and my thoughts were haunted by the rapidly decreasing range on the car. I would definitely have to charge it before attempting to drive back to Portland. I tried to put this unnecessary anxiety out of my mind. As I neared Astoria, I caught sight of a huge lumber enterprise, which I knew had been one of the supporting industries during the time of interest in the book I was writing. As I glimpsed the modern operations, I tried to imagine what it looked like in the 1840's to 1860's, and was wholly impressed with both.
Day 2: Fort Astoria, Heritage Museum and Maritime Museum - 16,352 steps
It smells like fish. The minute I stepped out of the house the smell hit me, and it is not a smell I enjoy in the least.
My body didn’t seem to get the memo that I could sleep in. After a little more than 6 hours of sleep, I was ready to go. I am a morning person, to be fair, but I wouldn't have minded a little extra sleep without an alarm to interrupt. Nevertheless, I had a lot to do and I was excited to get going, but the museums didn't open until later in the morning, so I decided to walk to the public park that marks the spot of the original Fort Astoria. On my way, I noticed a shop called Ohana which made me wonder if the owner's heritage was part of the Kanaka laborer who migrated from Hawaii and were so foundational to the origins of the town and its industry.
I knew what to expect from the park - it was a very modest structure with a mural depicting what you could imagine Fort Astoria looked like in 1811, complete with a dog playing. While I was taking some pictures and appreciating the environment, a woman and her dog came along and started playing fetch, so the dog unwittingly reenacted the mural in the background. On the backside of the sign has a map of the fort's plans. One of the things I wanted to make a note of was the placement of the Hawaiian's quarters, outside the fort. The memorial to Ranald MacDonald is there too, telling a
bit of his strange story, both in English and in Japanese.
Always attracted to water, I then made my way down to the coastline of the great Columbia River. It was a drizzly, overcast day so the view wasn't that great, but the
low clouds gave it a spooky look and, well, it was fitting considering the theme of my book being that this place is miserable, cold and wet. I discovered a little park dedicated to the Nordic heritage of many immigrants to the area, and browsed the displays, ensuring I found all 6 "hidden" trolls (they were not, in fact, very hidden at all). While walking around the town, I was absolutely endeared to the fact that the trash cans were all decorated to mimic various brands of canned fish and salmon, referencing the boom time industry when
Astoria was the world's capital of salmon canning. I also noted some historical buildings which I had become familiar with the stories I had read, especially in the Haunted Astoria book which was disappointingly void of strong evidence of ghostly presences. Finally, the museums were open. I headed to the Heritage Museum first, paying the inexpensive admission price. By now, I had been wandering for over two hours, so spotting the bathroom, that was my first stop. That's probably an unnecessary detail, but I've written it and that's that.
The first set of exhibits were most applicable to my book - the beginnings of the town as a fur trading post. While I had already learned quite a bit in my research and reading, the exhibits did a good job of making the historical knowledge visual and tangible. Pelts from various animals were on display with encouraging signs to
touch them and choose your favorite. I was surprised at some of the textures, and found I like the ermine the best. The coat of arms for the Hudson's Bay Company was displayed, and I had to look up the Latin, which meant "a skin for a skin." I thought it was funny and maybe a little foreshadowing, given what happened at Fort Astoria / Fort George over the years in the name of the fur trade.
I studied the list of crew and passengers aboard the Tonquin which was the first crew to land and settle in Fort Astoria. Captain Jonathan Thorn, I knew, was a terribly mean leader. I found it interesting that under the crew, two names were
The leader of the overland expedition was Wilson Hunt, and seeing his portrait, it was obvious why the more outdoorsy types along for the trip were skeptical of his pathfinding - he was definitely a business man and not a journeyman.
The presumed oldest headstone in the Pacific is in the museum, belonging to Donald McTavish who drowned in the treacherous river just months after arriving in Astoria to take over Fort George. I was curious why the headstone wasn't in the Pioneer Cemetery, but perhaps its just its claim to being the oldest that makes it a museum piece.
There were a lot of familiar portraits and some great maps illustrating the insanity of Astor's quests. I also enjoyed the Indian artifacts there, as the items traded are often hard to imagine or absorb without visuals like these.
In a bit of a jarring transition, the next set of exhibits were much more modern - talking about Clark Gable's theater debut in Astoria and the filming of the Goonies in the 1980's.
Redeemingly, there were separate rooms focusing on various topics. The first of these which I entered was about the indigenous people and their way of life prior to the European colonization. I'd been thinking recently about how getting out in nature is a prescriptive cure for general sadness, and what is lost in our modern lives by being cooped up in sealed buildings instead of living as these people did, so it was timely to see models of what that looked like.
Going upstairs, I was greeted by the hilarity of the sinful side of the town: prostitution, gambling, and bars. Apparently, Astoria was known to be the best red light district in the Pacific region! Good on them. I really enjoyed the recreation of the bar known as The Louvre.
There was another room full of early photography and film artifacts and information, with more Goonies memorabilia.
There was another room dedicated to the lumber industry which took root (pun intended) near the Columbia given its dense population and ease of floating logs down the river. This area also talked about berry-picking and butter churning, including an eye-catching model of a dog-powered butter churn.
One of the final rooms I went into dealt with discrimination and racism, including artifacts from the local KKK and a map of where discrimination took place. It talked about the Chinese laborers who did a lot of the brunt work for the early canning efforts, the Hawaiian Kanakas who made up a large portion of the populating in the fur trading days, and celebrated the first black-owned business in town.
I looked at the many books on offer, skimming several of them, and also noting some archival publications. I purchased a book and a few postcards and headed out for lunch.
The Fort George brewery, tempting me with beer and pizza, was not open for another few hours, so I popped into Blue Scorcher Bakery and Café and was not disappointed! They made loaves of sour dough bread there and had on the menu a grilled cheese made on sour dough, which sounded like the perfect thing, along with a chai tea, to warm up. It was so good, I went back later in the week. I noted, too, that there was an EV charging station across the street, which would be very convenient since it was a short walk from the house and I could grab a bite at either the bakery or the brewery.
On my way to the Maritime Museum, I got a good little laugh at a couple punny store names - B Serious Music Store and Bach n Rock. While not punny, I also thought it was funny that the adjoining store advertised, "CDs, Tapes, Incense." That seems perfect.
While I had a very narrow focus, and therefore didn't spend a ton of time on the modern parts of the museum, I did really enjoy the life-sized models and mannequins posing as fisherman, showing the nets and tools of how it might have looked back in the 1800s. My ticket came with an entrance onto the lightship Columbia which was closing soon, so after looking around for a short while, I headed outside to redeem my lightship tour. It was cool to be aboard a ship like that, as it always is, but I was feeling my motion sickness quickly, so I didn't linger longer than necessary. I went back to the museum and spent a little more time in some of the other exhibits I hadn't seen yet. After perusing the books and gift shop there, I was pretty exhausted, so I headed back to the house for some downtime.
I went out to the Fort George Brewery for dinner, and as I was locking up, the greeter cat, Annie, came out to see me. I had brought my laptop hoping to do some work on my book while eating and drinking but the wait for the tables was pretty lengthy and the bar was open, so I instead sat at the bar and used my phone to do some archival searches. After dark, the model fort was list up with Christmas lights, so I took a few pictures on my way back to the house.
Day 3: Wet Thanksgiving Hike to the Astoria Column - 12,767 steps
I had a Thanksgiving morning perfect for my style - leftover pizza (and I really treated myself by reheating it, too!) and watching the parade in bed. My sister and nephew were at the parade and were cheering on the NAU band whose membership included many of my niece's friends, so that was fun to exchange pictures and videos with my sisters and niece. After the parade, I showered and got ready for my day's adventure.
When I stepped out, I noticed happily that the fishy smell of yesterday was noticeably absent. Whether that was because of the rain or due to the reduced commercial fishing activities, or a combination of both, I was appreciative.
I had estimated that the Astoria Column was within walking distance when I planned my trip, and having seen a sign on one of the nearby intersections directing to it, I decided I'd try to find my way without my usual aide of GPS navigation. It was another drizzly, gloomy day, but I figured I was dressed for the weather and I had nothing better to do since most places were closed, so let's go!
I was successful in finding my way with the helpful signage, but I had not anticipated how uphill the whole journey would be. What was worse, once I got on the road for the park, there was no sidewalk, so I had to carefully walk on the edge of the road and ensure I stayed out of the way of cars coming down the winding road in dark and rainy conditions. Definitely not ideal, and I would not recommend doing that. I considered multiple times turning around and getting my car, or calling an Uber to take me the rest of the way, or maybe at the top I'd make a friend who could take me at least down the hill back to the sidewalk. Tired and in a pretty glum mood, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.
It was a deer, and it was watching me from behind some shrubbery. I grabbed my phone and took a couple pictures before I realized I had three, no four, deer, watching my from various vantage points. After taking a few more pictures, I was definitely encouraged. This is why we walk in nature. Something like that could easily be missed while driving. And the close encounter was so cool. I happened to be listening to an audiobook about the healing effects of walking through the woods, so I tried to channel my thoughts towards breathing in the piney foresty scents, imagine the fresh air healing my asthma. I had inadvertently forgotten my little Belle bag that has my hair bands, chapstick, and most importantly, my inhaler. So I had to be conscience of my breathing, but thankfully, I had zero asthma-feeling issues through all this walking and hiking up and down the hilly town.
Finally arriving at the top, I admired that the view would probably be pretty good on a clear day. There are winding stairs up to the top of the column, but considering both my exhaustion and the lack of a view, I opted out of that climb. I
also noticed a trail, but again opted out of that. After capturing some pictures, I used the restroom and headed back down the hill, now very cold and wet through my pants. At least it's down hill, right? I mean, yes, but those quads definitely got a workout from the steep hill down. The Pioneer Cemetery was along the way, and while I had noticed it on my way up, I decided to stop on my way down and check it out. Unfortunately, there are not too many headstones anymore, and I didn't spend a ton of time there, wanting to get out of the rain.
Back at the house, I debated taking another hot shower to warm up, but opted to have my ramen and sit under my bed covers. The chill was deep, though, and it took me longer than I expected to warm up. Nevertheless, I got a lot done on my book, incorporating the new things I had learned from a running checklist I had used to take notes.
Looking closer at what my host left for me, I noticed there were several passes to the museums which I had already been to, as well as one for the Flavel House Museum. I was bummed I hadn't realized they were there before paying for admission, but it wasn't a lot of money and I figured I'm helping the local economy or whatever.
The host also had left out, either intentionally for me or as a usual thing for his guests, books about Astoria. I was familiar with one of them, and had deemed it out of scope so I hadn't read it in depth. But since it was there, I spent some time perusing sections of it. The Haunted Astoria book I had already bought and read was there, so I didn't need to look at that one. But there were a couple others about Astoria and the greater region which I also skimmed through. It was surreal
reading one book which detailed historic homes still standing today, and realizing one of the entries, while entered under a different name for some reason, was the address of the house in which I was sitting.
There were also some sweet treats left for me by my host, so after finishing my work for the evening, I rewarded myself with a turkey-shaped chocolate - the best kind of Thanksgiving turkey if you ask me!
Day 4: Bubbles! Flavel House and more - 11,257 steps
The Flavel House Museum was the last museum I intended to go to, and it was a short walk from the house. So, I figured I'd have an easy day - just the museum and charging my car, and other than that just finishing up my book. Sunshine poured through my curtains as I got ready, and it occurred to me that maybe I should go back to the Column (driving, not doing that hike again).
On my way to the museum, something caught my eye. It wasn't a deer this time, but it took my brain much longer than it should have to process what I was seeing. At first I thought it was a light, no, two lights. But they were floating and revolving around each other? A sprite? Maybe there is some supernatural activity here. No, it was a bubble. A big one, to be fair, but just a bubble. In fact, there were a dozen, fairly large in size, floating from some unseen origin. I watched as several more made their way over the buildings and tried to capture some sort of artistic view of them in front of the Flavel House, to limited success. Turns out, bubbles are hard to photograph, and especially because they don't behave predictably.
The museum was great! It started with a 13-minute video which I ended up watching a couple times because there was so much detail I wanted to note. The Flavel family history was a little bit beyond the focus on my research, so I had known only a little bit about it, but I was fascinated by the stories and visuals in the video. The house was perfectly splendific. It was old-timey and luxurious, exactly as you'd want to see for a millionaire retiring in the late 1800s. I thought it was interesting there were paintings of ships on the Columbia in the downstairs "public" areas where guests may have been entertained, but in the bedroom, there were more natural scenes void of ships. I especially enjoyed the instruments and the
Checking the weather forecast, it looked like I had about an hour of clear skies before the gloom would return, so I got my car keys from the house and drove up the hill back to the Column. I was charged $5 for parking which also came with a free pass to all the museums I had already paid to visit. Do'h!
I took my car to the EV charging station - which was now full. A quick search found there was another one a little but further away, not as ideal, but I needed to get this sorted and didn't mind a "little" extra walking. I was able to plug in and, hilariously, the $10 credit I had preloaded and never used on my Blink account in 2011 was still there. All in all, it would take $10.99 to charge the car, so my card was charged for the extra $0.99.
I debated trying a new place for lunch, but had enjoyed that sour dough grilled cheese so much, I decided to go back to the bakery for more of the same. This time, I also purchased a dessert and a loaf of asiago sour dough to take with me. None of which disappointed in the least.
Tracking the slow charge of the car, I decided it would be a while, so headed back to the house on foot. The Arizona State rivalry game with Arizona was on shortly after, so I turned that on and continued edits on my book. Based on an estimate of how much charge was needed and the rate at which it was charging, I determined that half time would be a good opportunity to walk to get it and drive back. As I got near the shoreline, I noticed the Astoria Column was glowing. Since my pass was technically good still, I decided to drive back up to see it at night. The car was just barely fully charged when I arrived - I had nailed the timing! I drove up to the Column, took a few pictures, and realized I had nothing else I wanted to do there, given it was dark and there were no more views to see. As I headed back down the hill, my headlights caught the most chill buck with huge antlers just hanging out 
in a lawn. Back at the house, I finished watching the game and worked to get my book into review. Though ASU had started strong, they fell apart and UA won. I submitted my manuscript to be published. Mission accomplished, I rewarded myself with another chocolate turkey. Why can I not eat it without going for the head first?
(Partial) Day 5: Leaving Oregon (Weird) - 7,034 steps
I didn't have anything else I needed or strongly wanted to do, so I let my morning be a little slow, eventually getting ready and packing up to leave. Driving out of Astoria, the song "I'll be Home for Christmas" was playing on the radio, and for some reason, a deep sense of nostalgia for the town came over me. Even though I had focused on only a portion of the history and hadn't fully explored the restaurants and shops a local might, I had come to learn the town's streets and history in a very tangible way, the stories almost feeling like memories to me now.
On the edge of the downtown area, I was less familiar, having only seen it once as I was coming into town days earlier. I noticed cute houses just past the Co-op that somehow reminded me of the adorable boxy houses in Krakow, Poland.
Here's the link to my book!
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