One of the places I plan to visit in Oregon is the Tillamook Creamery. When I plugged that point into Google Maps, it routed me along the coast instead of inland to Olympia and I-5. There are some interesting things to see along the route, such as the mouth of the Columbia River and Fort Clapsop from the Lewis and Clark expedition in the 1800s. So I have no problem changing my route and staying along the coast.
Just across the Oregon border, the town of Astoria is home to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. The museum has a lightship, which is a floating lighthouse! The lightship and a 3-D movie on Fungi showing in the museum theater are on my list of things to see today!
I took a final look at the beach below the Kalaloch campground, and then started my journey.
It was a foggy and drizzly drive south along Highway 101 towards Oregon this morning, but breaks in the fog gave nice views of the mountains.
When I arrived at the Columbia river, it was much wider than I expected! I stopped at the "Dismal Nitch" rest area on the Washington side of the river to admire the view. "Dismal Nitch" is the name the Lewis & Clark expedition gave this place when the winds and waves caused them to pull off the river and hunker down, hungry and cold, for six days during a winter storm in November 1805.
I drove across the bridge to Astoria, Oregon, and headed to the Maritime Museum to tour the floating lighthouse, Lightship Columbia.
The lightship was operational from 1951 to 1979, and had a set of lights (13 mile range), a foghorn, and a radio beacon (100 mile range) to alert ships.
The rough seas pulled an earlier lightship from its anchorage in 1899, and it crashed into shore. Hence, the need for the large anchor that was used by Columbia. Another lightship that preceded Columbia was hit by a ship in 1937 and sank. The currents and reef at the mouth of the Columbia River are treacherous.
When the lightship was in use, Columbia was anchored 6 miles west of its current location at the museum. The crew worked 8 weeks on, 4 weeks off, unless weather prevented a crew transition.
The lightship was eventually replaced by the floating Large Navigational Bouy (LNB) shown below, which also was eventually replaced by the solar-powered bouy currently in use today.
I was able to take a tour of the lighthouse engine room. It has a set of diesel engines that were used to power the day to day operations such as powering the generator, heating water, etc. They didn't have enough torque to propel the ship through the water. The main engine remained powered down most of the time, since the lightship stayed anchored and stationary in the waters.
Because the main engine sat idle for so long, lube oil had to be pumped into the engine using a hand crank before starting the engine. The red hand valves on the side of the engine also had to be opened to let out any built up water or corrosion, and then closed again, before the engine could be started.
A brass lever controlled the main engine's throttle. In order to change power from forward to reverse, the engine had to be stopped and the gears changed! So backing up was not an easy process.
The bunks for the crew looked adequate. Despite the limited headroom on the lower bunks, they don't look cramped after I've been sleeping in my car for the past 5-1/2 months. However, I can only imagine how the ship tossled around when the seas became rough, and the fog horn was loud enough to make sleeping difficult. The captain had better quarters at the stern of the ship.
After my tour of the lightship, I went inside the museum and watched the 3-D movie on Fungi. It was fascenating. The mushrooms we see above ground are just a small part of the story.
Beneath the ground, large networks of thread-like filaments of mycelium connect fungi with plants, animals and soil. Mycelium is to fungi what roots are to plants. They secrete enzymes that break down dead organic matter such as trees. We swallow our food, but fungi grow into their food! Fungi are critical to healthy soil. They provide food not only for themselves, but also for bacteria and animals that live in the soil, and help trees absorb water and nutrients.
Yeast are microscopic fungi. Penicillin, shown at work encapsulating bacteria in the photo below, is produced from the penicillium fungus.
I really liked the movie. One couple was in the theater watching it with me. The man works with fungi, and told me Blue Azure psychedelic mushrooms (a.k.a., Blue Angels), which are more hallucigenic than cocaine, were discovered here in Astoria, Oregon, and that police have arrested people picking them in a local park. "Psilocybe acurescens" are one of the most potent psychedelic mushrooms, and have psilocybin and psilocin as their active compounds. I was tempted to ask him which park, haha! 😄
After the movie, I rushed to the Lewis and Clark Historic Park before it closed in the nearby town of Warrenton, and looked at the reproduction of the fort the Lewis & Clark Expedition built. They referred to themselves as "the Corp of Discovery". They spent the winter in the fort between December 1805 and March 1806, and named it Fort Clatsop, after the Clatsop Indians. The Clapsop and Chinook Indians in the area came to the fort almost daily to visit and trade.
Although the Clatsop and Chinook indians welcomed visitors overnight in their dwellings, and provided them mats by the fire, the Lewis & Clark expedition didn't allow overnight guests inside the fort.
Sacagawea, her French trapper husband, and their son, were among those who traveled with Lewis and Clark and stayed at the fort. Sacagawea's statue is in the forest outside the visitor center.
I didn't have time to watch either of the two films in the visitor center before it closed, but I'm spending the night in the area and will watch them in the morning. This gives me a chance to do some laundry in a local laundromat tonight.
I noticed the "Dismal Nitch" rest area on the Washington side of the river allows overnight parking, so I'll spend the night there tonight. I like that Washington State's rest areas have spaces marked for 8 hr, 4 hr, and 15 minute parking. Those times accommodate just about everyone... people who need to spend the night, or need only a few hours of rest, or just need to use the restrooms.
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