It feels very appropriate that I ended up with a small bottle of essential oil of cedar after a morning trip to Whole Foods. Today, we were headed to Washington.
After getting out of Portland, we struck east towards the coast again, driving through densely wooded hills and attendant logging areas and eventually reaching Astoria. Normally, I’m quite the trip planner, but I’ve let Eleanor take the reins on this one, and it’s been a nice change. Thus, I had no idea what to expect from Astoria; all I had was the generally fishy vibe of the restaurants I’d managed to find on Google Maps during patches of phone signal.
It turns out that Astoria is a fishing village with a strong history of canning from the 19th century onwards. Back in the town’s heyday, Scandinavian immigrants, especially Swedes, tended to take on the former work, while Chinese immigrants specialised in the latter. Wikipedia informs me that Astoria was quite important in the history of the United States — it was the first permanent settlement west of the Rockies — but you wouldn't know it from its unassuming appearance today. Moreover, it’s name after the great-grandfather of the guy for whom the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is named. The Astors sure got about after leaving Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg.
I don’t know quite what it was about it, but I loved Astoria. Was it the long waterfront that wasn’t lined with tourist tat shops? Was it the actually delicious lunch and frozen custard we procured (pro tip: go for marionberries and candied pecans as your toppings)? Was it the fact that despite having almost completely lost the industry of its former heyday, the town didn’t feel sad and forgotten? Was it the proliferation of breweries that seems to occur in every port town with formerly industrial buildings going spare? Uncertain. I also greatly enjoyed the comically outsized bridge across the Columbia; it reminded me of Porto in the way it created an automatic postcard framing.
I could have spent longer strolling the blustery pier and perhaps hopped a ride on its adorable historical tram, but the others wanted to get out of the drizzling rain. Luckily, we thought to stop at Josephson’s Smoked Fish, where the Danish flag was flying. I greatly look forward to trying the very small, very precious pieces of smoked local salmon, sturgeon and blackcod/sablefish we procured. I had the latter on fry bread with chimichurri, queso fresco and rucola at the surprisingly enlightened fish restaurant where we had lunch, and I couldn’t wait to taste its delectable butteriness again.
Once we’d crossed the roller coaster-ish Astoria-Megler bridge, it was immediately clear where we had arrived. The tip of Washington you arrive on has a steep slope of dark, moody evergreen trees coming right down to the road, which is right on the water. As our road snaked along the coast towards Long Beach, our destination for the night, it was clear we had unlocked a new level of remoteness. We stopped to walk up to Cape Disappointment lighthouse (of Lewis & Clark fame), where the lushness of the vegetation, the sublimity of the coast, the Meyer Lemon-ish salmonberries everywhere, and the wonderful smells of sea air, damp grass, and wild roses had me repeating ad nauseam how lovely it all was.
Long Beach (WA, not CA) did what it said on the tin, sorry, can: a long flat beach of grey sand lined with ‘dunes’ of long grass and evergreen copses. Our motel’s ‘ocean view’ was more like a ‘tree view’, but it did reveal adorable deer — and an alarmingly strong rainstorm at 4am. Dinner consisted of Trader Joe’s ‘fritos’ with onion dip and Art+Science perry–red grape co-ferment while playing Quiddler.
Another completely entertaining belter , loving reading these , only problem being I want to be there with you !