Go West, Young Man!

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Fort Stevens was our camping accommodations on Thursday night, as we rolled into town at around 9:00. Being right before the Labor Day weekend, the ranger told us we were lucky to get a spot. Starting Friday, they were booked solid. This was the largest campground west of the Mississippi, and the fourth largest in the country, with well over 500 campsites. Because of the lateness, and the rain, we decided to sleep in the car. In the morning, amidst the gray skies typical of the Pacific Northwest, and a fair share of sprinkles, we proceeded to Astoria, where we had a wonderful tour of the local laundromat. Astoria was named after John Jacob Astor, and is the oldest town in the American west, founded only five years after the Lewis and Clark expedition. It's also outside of Fort Clatsop, which was Lewis and Clark's winter camp, and for anyone wanting to visit NATIONAL parks, this is the place for you…not the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment. Only after driving to Washington did we find this out. So, downtrodden at having missed Fort Clatsop, the place we really wanted to go, we let Cape Disappointment welcome us with open arms. While it wasn't a living history museum, it was full of information and journal excerpts from the diaries of Lewis and Clark. They do a nice job of laying out the journey, step by step, mile by mile, with plenty of interactive displays. The film was very good, too.

Meriwether Lewis was contacted by President Jefferson, and informed that he was to lead an expedition in exploration of the west and to find an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis called his longtime friend and fellow soldier, William Clark, to help him lead the aptly named Corp of Discovery. Lewis and Clark began their preparations in 1803; Lewis was gathering materials and supplies and shipping them to St. Louis while Clark gathered and recruited men for the journey. Interestingly enough, Lewis was raised to the rank of Captain for the expedition, but Clark's promotion never went through, so while he was a co-leader of the group (and Lewis' commanding officer when they were in the army together), his rank and pay remained that of a 2nd Lieutenant, though none of the men were aware of this. They met in St. Louis just as winter was coming in, giving them about 6 months in which to train the men and finalize their travel plans. In the spring of 1804, they set out to follow and find the headwaters of the Missouri river. They followed it into North Dakota, where they spent their first winter at Fort Mandan. Here they spent the winter repairing equipment, gathering supplies, trading with the Indians and learning about the Indians' culture and language. It was here that they picked up the interpreter Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife, Sacagawea. The next spring, they set out again, following the river up into Montana and Idaho, where they met Sacagawea's tribe and got horses they desperately needed for the trip over the Rockies. When they finally crossed the Rockies in late October and met with the Nez Perce indians, they were nearly starved. Finally, they had a river to take them where they needed to go. They made huge dugout canoes and floated down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, where they spent their final winter at Fort Clatsop.

Next time, we journey to Mount St Helens and try to get a glimpse of some lava.

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Photos

Oregon Sunset
The beautiful sunset on our drive up from Tillamook to Lewis and Clark.

Astoria
This is the Astoria Bridge from Astoria to Washington, the world's longest continuous truss bridge.

Banana Slug
Our friend, the banana slug at the L&C Interpretive Center. Do you think that if you step on him, your feet will fly out from under you?

Lewis and Clark
Self-explanatory. We were a bit cape-disappointed ourselves to find out that it was a state park, and we had to PAY! Still worth it, though.

Lewis and Clark
The US flag in 1795. Fifteen stars and fifteen stripes for the fifteen states in the union. By 1803 there were 17 states and this was the flag until 1818, when Congress declared that it should have 13 stripes, one for each of the original colonies.

Lewis and Clark
Cody was practicing loading up the supplies in this little canoe. If our trip is any indication, he's going to need a whole lot more food on that boat.

Lewis and Clark
Cody is hunting for wild game. It looks like he's aiming for that elk, which will feed 18 of the men of the L&C expedition.

Lewis and Clark
A dugout canoe in the style that LnC would have used. The steel ring at the end of this canoe shows the size of the trees used by LnC to make their canoes once they made it over the Rockies.

Lewis and Clark
The Cape of Disappointment at the mouth of the Columbia River is also known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. These are some items from ships who met their demise.

Cape Disappointment
Cape Disappointment living up to expectations.

Pretty baubles
Glass floaters. I have no idea what they are for, I just liked the colors. Dad???

Fresnel, again
THIS is a first order Fresnel lens. As you can see, I got dressed up for the visit. A single candle inside of this baby could be seen 17 miles away. As luck would have it, the ship carrying construction materials and workers to build the lighthouse wrecked on the bar at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1853, delaying construction for two years.