2014 Road Trip - To Fort Stevens

Let me start by explaining the nature of this vacation. This is one of those trips that my sister drives me all over the place. She takes me along purely for the sake of navigation. We make a lot of stops, and try to see as much as we can in little time.


Unlike previous log entries, I don’t want to list everything I see for every stop. Instead, I will use eBird for most of my lists. There will be some exceptions. Specifically, I am not going to submit checklists for random sightings along the road. Today’s list currently shows the following critters: Gull, Great Blue Heron, Rabbit, Starling, Crow, Mallard, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Goldfinch, Geese, Vulture, Caspian Tern, Red-winged Blackbird, Junco, Robin, Raven.

Perhaps I should have left the list for the end. Instead, readers have to wade through that crap to get to the lesser crap that is my explanation of today’s leg of the trip.

The Julia Butler Hanson Refuge for Long Names was our first stop. We didn’t do any hiking. Instead, we visited a couple viewpoints. Not surprisingly, the White-tailed Deer that the refuge was created to protect were unseen. That should make sense. They have been moving the deer out of the area.

We made a couple stops within the Willapa refuge. We walked at both locations, but the first really only had an art trail.

We had one last stop on our side of the Columbia. We visited Fort Columbia. We explored the fort. I even was nice enough to pose in one of the many unlighted rooms.

To Astoria. We crossed the river and visited a town famous for Kindergarten Cop. Our first stop within Astoria was their maritime museum. I have never felt right using flash in museums, so my pictures should be horrible. There were boats, models, weaponry, and other maritime displays. Unlike our local maritime museum, there were no ships in bottles. The Peacock (one of the boats) and the Columbia Lightship were outside, so maybe I got a shot that was less horrible.

Since we were on the waterfront, we decided to enjoy the Astoria Riverwalk. Outside the views of their famous bridge, we didn’t see anything special on that walk.

We had one last thing we wanted to make sure we did in Astoria. We visited the Astoria Column. The tower on Astoria’s biggest hill provided a nice view of the Columbia River. The other sides of the column weren’t quite as scenic. As for getting to the top of the tower, let’s just say that we had a Murray Morgan Moment (alliteration unintended).

With how much time we had already spent, we had to find a campsite before they were all taken. We have settled on Fort Stevens State Park. This will probably end up being more of a destination for tomorrow. Perhaps I will get out later today, but we don’t have time to explore everything we wanted.

One last thing for this update. We have added a Steller’s Jay for our random sightings.

UPDATE 1: I have added pictures from the Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for the Columbian White-Tailed Deer and an eBird checklist.

UPDATE 2: I have added pictures from Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, an eBird checklist from the Headquarters, and an eBird checklist from the Riekkola Unit.

UPDATE 3: I have added pictures from Fort Columbia State Park and an eBird checklist.

UPDATE 4: I have added pictures from the Columbia River Maritime Museum.

UPDATE 5: I have added pictures from the Astoria Riverwalk and an eBird checklist.

UPDATE 6: I have added pictures from the Astoria Column.