Escape to Astoria

My Jeep broke. AGAIN. I don’t know if you recall, but during Mother’s Day weekend, my radiator had to be replaced. Which was not cheap, especially if I include the cost of renting a car for a week while it was at the shop. This time, a cute, harmless little “check engine” light came on, and since we are planning to drive to Montana in a few days, I was a responsible adult and took it to have a professional check it and tell me, “Ma’am, there is nothing wrong. Your engine light came on as a mistake. Everything will be great for your big drive. Also, this information is all free of charge.”

Instead, what I heard was, “Ma’am, there are several things wrong with your Jeep. Some things are critical and they need to be fixed and we can’t believe you haven’t died already. Also, this is going to be a few thousand more dollars on top of the couple of thousand you just spent in May on the radiator.”

I wanted to get a few more years out of my Jeep. However, it’s falling apart at a rate that is unsustainable. It’s only nine years old. It shouldn’t be a money pit already. ARgh. Anyway. The car was in the shop for a week again. Sandy came to pick me up and take me to the coast so we could have fun and catch up on each others’ news.

We went to Astoria because it’s super close and Sandy had checked ahead of time and discovered that Thursday it would be actually sunny. Here in Oregon, it can be warm and sunny everywhere else and still grey and drizzling and cold along the coastal towns. So ocean sunshine is a special treat and worth the drive. By the time we arrived, we were starving. One great thing about Astoria is that there are wonderful restaurants. We were in the mood for seafood and went to reliable Mo’s and asked for outdoor seating.

Sandy and I had some big life stuff to talk about that had happened in both of our lives since we saw each other last. There was no shortage of talk as we spent the entire day together, soaking up sights and flowing back and forth between talking about what we were seeing or experiencing, and then getting back on track with our stories to each other.

The waterfront on the Columbia River side strikes me as beautiful every time. Though we were only minutes from the Pacific Ocean beaches, we didn’t go there on this trip. We had enough to see and appreciate, and the sea influence was all around us.

We tore ourselves away from the waterfront and our interest was captured right away by a little park I had not seen before. It was the Nordic Heritage Park. This park was completed in 2022, which explains why I had not seen it before.

On my visits to the city in the past, I had noticed Swedish bakeries and Finnish tourist shops, and had not thought much about it. The website for the park explains that Scandinavian immigrants have been a significant part of Astoria’s history, and the earliest of them were loggers, fishermen, farmers, and small business people. By the 1910 census, Scandinavians made up 35% of the Astoria population. Their descendants put up this monument. It is packed with imagery and education for its small size. Scroll through the images below to see all the interesting parts of this park.

Astoria is a tourist town, and many of the shops along the main streets are designed to pull you in off the sidewalk. It worked for us and we wandered happily through many of them, looking at all the different things we could buy. At the back of one shop was a hidden bookstore with a stage that we liked. The proprietor confirmed our suspicion that music and poetry readings were performed live in that inviting space.

We then headed back to my place and chatted some more. We each got a cool drink and went out to sit at my back deck and look out across the grass and watch the day wane. Can you believe there was more to talk about after all those hours? Well, there was. As the skies began to grow dark, Sandy decided it was time to head home. It had been a lovely way to wait for auto repairs. ❤