Day 5 - Astoria here we come!

We headed up to Astoria in the morning and our first stop was the Maritime Museum, which was wonderful. Lots of fun displays:




And included a life-size tugboat bridge:


And the actual bridge of a WWII era battleship. The thing is so big they actually built the museum AROUND it. Kids loved playing in it.




Then we got to go explore the lightship Columbia, which served as a floating lighthouse marking the entrance to the Columbia River for many years.

It was replaced by the unmanned bouy light in the foreground, which has since been replaced by GPS systems and is also on display at the museum.
It's not very big, but it was interesting. Brynn was terrified while on the deck, and had to be carried down the stairs, but loved exploring below deck.

Mini fire hydrant on deck:




After we were done there, we decided to drive across the Astoria Bridge into Washington state to have a picnic lunch. Darrin, Callie & Brynn had never been to Washington State before, so we couldn't be that close and NOT go!

I wanted to drive 10 miles up to see Cape Disappointment lighthouse, but no one else wanted to, so I was disappointed. We could see it (barely) from our picnic spot:

Do you see it? Do you? Maybe? Just barely? Were you hoping for a better view? Yeah, me too.
We ate and the kids played for a while while I closed my eyes to try and get rid of a migraine. Had another disappointing pillbug hunt.

Kyra thought it was cold:

Then we headed back into Astoria and went to the Astoria Column. It's a huge pillar covered with murals depicting the history of the area.

Usually you can climb up it and get a great view, but it was closed, so all we could do was view the outside and take fake pictures:

Should have gone to Cape Disppointment, I tell ya!
Returned to Seaside and walked along the beach for a while, stopping to let the kids play on the swings:

Went into "downtown" Seaside and had the kids ride the carousel:



Bought some fudge and went back to our hotel where we ate the fudge and watched the Olympics.