Astoria and On To Washington

PCH Day 12: We spent a nice relaxed day doing some admin (laundry!) and such like and then had a little look round Astoria, which is the oldest city this side of the Rockies, so I'm told. We went up to the Astoria Column, which provides fantastic views of the surrounding area, particularly from the top. We made it just in time to see those views before the rain came sweeping up the river and obliterated them completely! Then we took a trip to visit Fort Clatsop, which is where the Lewis and Clarke Expedition ended up before returning back East in 18-something or other. Because it was chucking it down we didn't spend long there, hence the vagueness of the date! The plan is to return tomorrow morning before continuing North as it looked very interesting. We found an outlet mall and I got dragged in to do some shopping - I'm hoping we'll have room in our bags to bring at all home! Tomorrow we cross the mighty Columbia River and head in to Washington state.

PCH Day 13: The weather was much improved today. After breakfast we ventured back to Fort Clatsop to have a proper look around the site and the Visitor Centre. It was very interesting and we could have stayed there for hours but sadly time was against us. A little more shopping at the Outlet Centre (goodness knows how we're going to get this home!) and then we started off for today's destination, Ocean Shores, Washington. Amazing scenery again, but different again - vast rivers, bays and evergreen forests. Tomorrow we have a long journey to Port Townsend, with quite a lot to see on the way as we go around the Olympic National Park and the Olympic Peninsular.
For those of you who have never heard of Lewis & Clarke (as I hadn't) you can find out more at: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition