Astoria

"life is only as good as the memories we make..." So Long, Astoria

our last stop in Oregon was in Astoria. the city is very charming with beautiful old homes. we didn't spend a ton of time there though but we got a general feel for the city. we drove around the city and through some neighborhoods admiring the homes. 

we made an obligatory stop at the Goonies house which was well marked with signs. there were even arrows showing where to park so everyone doesn't park right in front of the house. the house can't be seen from the road so you have to walk up the driveway to get to it. 

we were lucky we went when we did because we found out a few weeks after that the owner closed the house for visitors and actually put blue tarps over the front. they said that they were getting 1000+ visitors a day and not all were respectable and would leave trash. while I can understand how annoying that must be, they chose to live in a house that many fans of the movie want to see. I think that the city should buy the house and offer paid tours since it is such a huge tourist destination for the city. our they could turn it into a bed and breakfast as I am sure many fans would pay a lot to actually stay there.

  we drove to the waterfront which had a good view of the Astoria bridge.

 our next stop was the wreck of Peter Iredale which was just outside Astoria. the ship ran ashore in 1906 during a storm with no casualties. since the ship was embedded in the sand it was sold for scrap with just a small part of it remaining. it was interesting to see but it looked much larger in pictures I had seen. also, there were kids playing in it so it was hard to get any good pics. I wish I had gotten pics from the front which looks cooler than this.

 we left the wreck and then drove over the Astoria bridge into Washington. the bridge is the prettiest shade of green.