The Great Astoria Adventure

Myself, Sheri, Sobo and Griffin at the Astoria Column

My first day in Portland wasn't exactly a day in Portland. I slept in Portland at Erik and Katie's (on the world's most glorious air mattress...seriously, this thing is fit for kings), and in the morning Sobo, Sheri, and Sheri's precious doggie Griffin (A Bassett Hound/German Shephard mix for those that are wondering) went on adventure up to Astoria, Oregon to visit my Mecca. Where the movie the Goonies was filmed. It seemed like a perfectly random adventure to start my time in Portland with, and it was a grand day.

The first thing we did once we got into Astoria (after a lengthy bit of travel featuring Taco Del Mar, Coffee, discussion about Square Burgers and what type of food you would make healthy if you could...side note: my answer was cookies...etc.) was go and check out the visitor's center to see if we could get any inside information about places to visit and more importlantly where those places were. Recommended visit spots: The Astoria Column, the elementary school from Kindergarten Cop, and various Goonies related places, including the jail the Fratelli's escaped from and more importantly the Goonies House. The woman there was remarkably informative, as I am pretty sure I think this is all they do - field questions about the Goonies. They had special bags made up, t-shirts, etc. It was both a little bizarre and a little awesome. First up for us was the Astoria Column.

Sobo and myself from the top of the Column

The Column was very cool, as you could check out the incredibly gorgeous area in its entirety (360 degree view from a great height = perfect) and you could get the added benefit of dealing with the world's most ridiculous spiral staircase. To get to the top of the Column, you had to climb a spiral staircase that made your entire legs burn out of anger towards you for making them do the climb, and then on the way down (which we raced during of course, because we are crazy people) you start to get dizzy. When I got to the bottom I nearly fell over. No less, it was quite the sight, and it had extra cool features such as the fact that the landscape directly below looked like a part of a level from Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

View of a real life Legend of Zelda level

Up next was the elementary school from the Governator's classic film Kindergarten Cop. Sobo and I were very excited about the prospect of this as it gave us the opportunity to drop ridiculous quotes from this movie and to attempt to recreate famous parts of the movie, such as Arnold carrying out two students during the fire drill (as recreated above with myself and Griffin posing as the students). Really, even if the places didn't look like we remembered, all that really mattered was that we were there and we were having fun with it, which we did big time. I loved it. Of course, next was the ultimate stop - the Goonies House. Of course we could not recognize it nearly at all, because sadly enough we had not seen the movie recently nor did the place look the same at all anymore. Did this make it less awesome? I think not! Sheri and I of course took pictures in front of the house (one with me is seen above), and I may or may not have recreated a certain famous scene from the movie there (on video no less), and it was generally a great visit. A bit anti-climactic maybe, but still great. So after visiting the key places, we decided to the take in a light lunch at the Rogue Brewery there in Astoria. We had Oysters (really expensive ones that were disappointing) and some of their fine brews, and then we departed Astoria hoping to get out to the Tillamook factory to take in a tour and score some cheese. Of course due to my inability to get up early (I got in at 3:30!! I was tired!!) we were delayed enough to not be able to make it to Tillamook to check it out. Very sad, and I apologize Sheri!

Sobo and I cheers-ing our Sunkist bottles on the Oregon Coast

After we discovered we could not make Tillamook, we went into Seaside, Oregon and went to check out the beach and some of their shops they had in the tourist trap-y town that surrounded it. We went into a candy shop that claimed to have one of the most diverse selections in the world, and sure enough they did. There I got Sobo and myself bottles of Sunkist (had never seen bottles before! Ended up seeing them about 30 other places during the trip) and Sheri some fudge as bribery for making us not able to get to Tillamook. After that, we took our beverages down to the beach, which was ridiculously gorgeous and warm beyond words. I took off my sandals and roamed on the wonderfully warm sand, and we ran down and got in the Ocean (but not too much of course). It was really cool, and extremely hard to believe that this place existed in Oregon. It was like a Hawaiian beach, except you know...much colder and far less populated.

After this, we rushed back to Portland to make an important date (Trivia Night - Portland edition!), but the day was definitely the highlight. It was an awesome time, and a very welcome change from the rest of my trip which was so heavily based around concerts. Below I have a special present for all of you readers. You should enjoy this.

Myself doing the Truffle Shuffle in front of the Goonies House