A fire is burning in Bird Spirit Land

I had a wonderful day with Tyson today! We slept in a little late (and granted, late these days is 7:30 in the morning, due to us usually having to get up at 6 to get to work), had some breakfast, and headed out to Astoria for the day. It was beautiful out, with only a little rain and a little wind. There are quite a few museums up there that I've always wanted to go to, but had never actually visited. Two of them, the Firefighter's Museum and the Clatsop County Heritage Museum, were closed today, but Flavel House, which is a gorgeous Victorian mansion that was built by the wealthiest man in Astoria, was open. The carriage house is now the visitor center and gift shop. They've got a buggy and a sleigh that belonged to the family housed in there, and it was so neat to get up close and see them! You couldn't touch, of course, but you didn't really need to, as you could literally get close enough to see into them and look around. The house itself is being restored to its full Victorian splendor, so there were a couple of rooms that were still being repainted. *_* The house itself, though...man, so pretty! Captain Flavel had the house wired for electricity before it was even available in Astoria, hot and cold running water, and all sorts of other things that, for the time period, were considered modern. Many of the furnishings are original, and there's a lovely garden outside, too.

I also had no idea that Astoria had so much Scandinavian history, but everywhere we looked, there were references to Finland or to Norway. There's a great Danish bakery in downtown that we stopped at to have breakfast (they even had schnecken--German nut and caramel rolls--so tasty!), an import shop right next to that, and a Scandinavian Midsummer festival! May have to go back in June for that. Though a lot of things were closed today, we had a blast going to antique shops and looking around the town, and asking about good bed and breakfasts in the area. We'd like to try and get some friends together for a weekend in costume in the town. Astoria's restored vaudeville theater is also very pretty, and I'd love to go and see something there.

The last stop of the day before the drive home was Fort Clatsop, which is near where Lewis and Clark's winter camp was. There's a replica of the fort based on drawings by the expedition, a nifty museum, and in the summertime, they have costumed reenactors at the fort to show what life was like during the four months that Lewis and Clark were there. Seeing it at this time of year, which would have been when they were camped there, I think that I felt something of the isolation and loneliness that they might have felt while there. They had around 30 other people with them, but even so, they were on the opposite side of the country from where they'd started and from where their families were. The campsite felt very stark when we went through it, and since there weren't many people there, it was also quite quiet.

Also, note to self: the Astoria Column is very, very tall. Don't look down while you're climbing the steps in the future.