Astoria Column, then & now

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Here are a few pics of, and from, the Astoria Column out in (you guessed it) Astoria. Some were taken on my mini-roadtrip last month, and others are from the only other time I've been there, wayyy back in February 1979.

Regarding the 1979 pics, the originals actually look better than what you see here. The scanner I used on these is about a decade old. It doesn't do an overly professional job of figuring out colors, and its dynamic range is pretty limited, so if you have a photo with light parts and dark parts, you can get one or the other to come out somewhat decently. But not both. And it puts ugly vertical bands on everything it scans. And square objects come out a tad on the rectangular side, like photo #2 above. On the other hand, the scanner was free, and Ubuntu's default install includes a driver for it. So that's something, I guess.

The first couple of photos in the slideshow are more or less the same view of downtown Astoria, taken 28 years apart. The two roughly squarish photos were taken with a 126 camera, which you basically can't even find film for anymore. I'm not 100% sure whether I took those or not, since my own camera was a little 110 just like this one.

Here are a few of the column itself.

The old photos show the column was looking quite ramshackle in 1979. Just like everything else in Astoria back then, if memory serves. I'm afraid we have to thank the rich Californians for the city's recent revival... but don't tell them I said so. They're plenty smug enough already, the bastards.

The recent one (top one, silly) really isn't that great, I admit. I was mostly taking shots of the view from the column, but as an afterthought I decided I needed at least one photo of the column itself and took a quick snap of it. (If you want to see better photos of it, there's no shortage of them out on the interwebs. There are even a couple VR panoramas, which are less vertigo-inducing than you might expect.)

The column doesn't actually lean like that, in case you're wondering. Although that would make the trip up the stairs even more exciting than it already is. It's a dark, winding, narrow, rickety, alarming little staircase, with lots of tiny little oddly-shaped spiral steps.

If I'd taken a better recent pic, you could see how the city completely renovated the exterior a couple of years ago. There wasn't much they could do with the stairs, though. It's not like they could've made them any wider or anything.

In my defense, photographically speaking, the camera wasn't shaking in these shots. It was me that was shaking. Oh, and the stairs were shaking, too. I didn't remember the stairs being that scary in 1979.

Several kids ran past me on the stairs going both directions. Who knows, maybe they'll come back 30 years from now and they'll wonder if it was always that scary. Or they'll just float up to the top with their antigravity boots, sneering at all the poor chumps of decades past who had to worry about stuff like "stairs" and "exercise".

So anyway, here's the very top of the column, taken from the balcony.

A few grain ships on the Columbia. Ships tend to park in Astoria temporarily on their way to Portland. I don't know if it's due to the tide, or they're waiting in line for a river pilot, or the Astoria visitor's bureau pays them to create some nautical ambience, or what it is, exactly.

Looking south, here's Saddle Mountain and (I think) the Lewis and Clark River.

Just across the parking lot from the column, and steps from the gift shop, is this odd memorial to a local Indian chief who befriended Lewis & Clark while they were here, 200-odd years ago.

The memorial only dates to 1961, and was put together by people claiming to be descendants of the aforementioned chief. Which is a nice touch, certainly, although I don't know how you'd ever be able to prove a claim like that. If you're running a cash-strapped city parks department, and someone comes along wanting to give you something for free, most likely you don't ask a lot of tough questions. They could say grandpa was the Shah of Atlantis, for all you care, so long as their checks clear. But hey, I'm always a cynic, in case you hadn't noticed.

Fort Rock Cemetery

Some photos from the cemetery next to Fort Rock, out in eastern Oregon.

I sort of fixated on the "flags and headstones in the remote desert" angle, and it just didn't occur to me to get a closer look at any of the headstones. Believe it or not. Someone else did exactly that, though, and put together a fascinating Flickr photoset about it. A few more photos of the cemetery appear in this Waymarking gallery. All those photos make me wish I'd taken the time to look around more. Although if I had, I probably wouldn't have had the time to drop by Hole-in-the-Ground. In hindsight, that may be what I ought to have done. Oh, well. You live and learn.

More VuPoint fun

More photos taken with that $14.99 digital camera I picked up a while ago. The top photo and the last two were taken through that infrared filter I cobbled together. It's odd how IR photos taken with my usual camera come out in a range of pink, lilac, and orange tones, while with the VuPoint they come out sort of black and white.

If nothing else, the photos show that the camera's viewfinder image is a very, very rough approximation of what the end result is going to look like. You never know what you're going to get. It's like a box of chocolates, or whatever.

Meanwhile, I was at the antique store earlier today and picked up another new toy. Cute, huh? There are also some larger pics of the flash version. The thing uses 620 film, which can be tricky to come by. There's a camera store in town that does 120 -> 620 film conversions, so maybe that'll work for this lil' beastie and maybe it won't. I mostly got it as a shelf curio, but I just might take it out for a spin some time. I realize I've said repeatedly I have no interest in dealing with film cameras ever again, but I might make an exception now and then. Purity is so uninteresting, after all...







The above photo was taken through an especially wavy wine bottle. It's not camera distortion, though that would be a reasonable guess.







Here's those IR photos I mentioned...

two storms, long ago

I recently ended up with a free flatbed scanner, and I thought I'd try my hand at scanning some old photos I took as a kid. The scanner is about 9 years old and has some highly original notions about color fidelity, so here are a couple that looked good in greyscale. I took both of these with a little 110 camera I got for Christmas one year, if I remember right.

I'm not entirely sure when or where the first photo was taken. It was in an old photo album, and the other photos were of a family vacation to Yellowstone back in the early 1980s. (circa 1984, I'm guessing.) In any case, I assume it's from that trip since it's in that album, but I'm not 100% sure, and there's not a lot of context to be had from the photo itself. I never got into the habit of writing on the backs of photos, so no clues there either. I rather like the photo though. I'd be happy with this one if I took it today.

Second photo is a storm over the Pacific back in February 1979. I know the month and year because we were driving down the coast on another family vacation, and the weather was like this the whole time, which meant that I missed the big solar eclipse on Feb. 26th, 1979. So this would've been a few days before the eclipse, I expect.

Back in the present day, getting the scanner working under Ubuntu was a mildly irritating challenge. At first I was pleased to learn that Ubuntu came with SANE, an open-source scanner package that plays much the same role TWAIN does on Windows. It even had a driver for my particular scanner, and initially I couldn't believe my luck. And then it just wouldn't detect the scanner. It just refused to see it. After a great deal of searching about, I finally hit on the problem. The scanner's one of those old parallel port jobs, and the problem wasn't that SANE didn't see the scanner, it's that it didn't see the parallel port. Seems that if the kernel module for the parallel port device isn't loaded, and it isn't by default on Ubuntu, you have to modprobe ppdev as root to get the damn thing into the kernel. That causes /dev/parport0 to magically appear in /dev, but the device only grants access to root by default. I suppose you could run xsane as root if you wanted to, although it screams bloody murder when you do that (and rightly so). Or you could make the SANE backend suid root, but that's bad news too. Changing the permissions on the device seems like the least bad approach, or at least that's what I've been doing so far. Then there's xsane's peculiar gui to puzzle out. And I'm still not sure how to make colors come out correctly. Whoever designed the scanner was clearly a huge fan of blue-green. Other colors, not so much.

Honestly, I don't know how we ever got by without digital photos.

It occurred to me recently that it ought to be feasible to pack the innards of a digital camera into a 110 or 126 film cartridge. You could haul that mid-60's Instamatic out of mom's closet, brush off the dust, and start taking digital photos. The cartridge would need an image sensor (obviously), memory, a small battery, some support circuitry, and probably a USB connector somewhere. Everything else -- optics, shutter, flash, etc. -- would be provided by the surrounding vintage camera. It'd be a cool, geeky retrotech thing to have, but actually making something like this would be far beyond my measly skills with a soldering iron, and selling it would be far beyond my even measlier marketing/PR skills. Volunteers, anyone?

Fort Rock

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More mini-roadtrip pics, this time from Fort Rock [map], a bizarro volcanic structure just off Hwy 31 southeast of Bend. Fort Rock's just a few miles east of Hole-in-the-Ground, and shares a similar origin, but it's much more photogenic. I took quite a few photos of the place, and uploaded a bunch of them to Flickr. Then I realized this post would be wayyyy too bulky if I included all of them -- so the full set is here in case you're interested.

Some links about the geology of the area, from the USGS, OregonGeology.com (brought to you by Oregon's Department of Geology & Mineral Industries), and Volcano World (brought to you by OSU and the University of North Dakota). And the U. of O. has a page about the 9000 year old sandals discovered nearby, which was a major archeological find by Oregon standards. Hey, it's what we've got. It's not like we have pyramids. Not that I find much to admire about societies that spend all their time and energy building pyramids, mind you. Or Gothic cathedrals. Or tacky suburban megachurches for that matter. But I digress.

If Fort Rock was near Hollywood, just imagine all the westerns that would've been filmed here. It's a real missed opportunity if you ask me, and I'm not a rabid fan of westerns. And just imagine Captain Kirk fistfighting a shambling alien baddie here. I know I'd watch that.

If Fort Rock was in Europe, or anywhere else with a substantial population, it probably would've been used as a fortress or a castle some time in its long history. There would be historic buildings, and tour buses, and trinket shops with t-shirts, and there'd be one of those tacky nighttime laser shows they do. There'd be minivans full of harried parents and screaming kids. A McDonalds every 10 feet. Talented pickpockets working the crowd. Senior tour groups from Texas complaining loudly about all the "foreigners" and their horrible foreign ways. Groups of pasty white Brits on holiday, loudly binge-drinking on the local rotgut at 9 am. Flocks of Japanese tourists with expensive cameras. Obese German nudists lounging around looking smug.

But you'll find none of that here. Fort Rock was once used as a livestock pen, no doubt a very excellent one, until the owner donated it to the state parks department. There's a small (and never full) parking lot, a few basic interpretive signs, some picnic tables and restrooms. Several trails meander around within the rock walls. The tiny town of Fort Rock lies in the distance some miles away. But for the birds nesting in the rocks, and the constant desert wind, all is silence....

Marshall Park excursion

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...wherein I track down and explore yet another "secret" spot around town. This time it's Marshall Park [map], 25 acres tucked away in the West Hills, just upstream of much larger and better known Tryon Creek State Park. Tryon Creek runs through Marshall Park too, although it's just a small, rushing stream at this point.

The place isn't actually that secret, compared to the places I usually track down. The city parks website mentions it, there's an official sign at the parking lot, and there are plenty of well-maintained trails through the place. Hell, the surrounding area is officially the Marshall Park Neighborhood. There's even a Friends of Marshall Park group, which organizes volunteer work parties and such. But still, I'd never been there before, and I suspect most people have never heard of the place. Also, an Oregonian article about the park says it's secret, and who am I to argue with our local paper of record?

As part of the Tryon Creek watershed, the park does get a fair bit of attention from the city, and they have a number of official docs about it scattered around their website, including a vegetation summary, a riparian habitat evaluation, and a couple of watershed reports. The latter doc uses the term "Marshall Cascades" for the strech of Tryon Creek in the park, which seems like an appropriate name.

I was interested in the place because I'd heard there was a real, live waterfall here. Which is quite appealing right now with the ~100 degree weather we've been having. Unless I missed something, I think "waterfall" is sort of overstating the case. Experts can quibble about exactly what constitutes a waterfall, but if it isn't taller than me, I don't think it qualifies. What the park really has is a stretch of Tryon Creek rushing and cascading over rocks. Which is still nice and quite photogenic; it just isn't a waterfall. So here are the Marshall Cascades:

If you'd like to see what they look like when photographed with a "real" camera, by someone who actually knows what they're doing, here's one good example.

When I located the parking lot along SW 18th Place, there weren't any other cars there, so I figured the park would be empty. But it was full of joggers, kids, and people walking dogs. I imagine they all must've been from the neighborhood and didn't need to drive to the park. Another sign the park primarily caters to neighborhood residents is that although the park's full of very well maintained trails, there aren't any maps or signs telling you where they go. I suppose you're just supposed to know that already. I didn't, of course, so I did actually get lost for a brief while. I suppose I could've asked for directions, but being temporarily lost can be kind of fun, so long as it doesn't go on too long. It gets old quickly.

I evenually got my bearings and found the car, and it was off to the office for yet another dumb meeting. Being lost in the forest was a lot better, if you ask me. Sigh...

Not Strictly a Beer Trip

During my recent mini-roadtrip, I tried to visit local brewpubs around the state whenever it was practical. That wasn't the sole or primary focus of the trip, but I managed to work a few in during the trip. My rule (ok, guideline) for the trip as a whole was to only go places I'd never been before, so I figured I'd try to apply that to the beerish portion of the excursion as well.

After my adventure at Saddle Mountain, I decided it was time for a beer. (If you read this blog regularly, you probably know I decide that quite a lot.) Luckily, in Oregon beer is never far away. So I made the jaunt over to Bill's Tavern & Brewhouse, right in the heart of Cannon Beach.



It turns out that Cannon Beach had held its annual sandcastle contest a few days earlier, so Bill's was out of everything except their Blackberry Beauty and Spruce Lager. I tend to be something of a hop bigot, and I'm sure I'd have gone with something else if the selection had been wider. But it was a hot day, I'd been out hiking, and both beers were light and refreshing. So it all turned out ok in the end. The fish and chips were pretty decent too.

Neither the blackberry nor the spruce brew hits you over the head with its namesake ingredient, which to me is a good thing.



Beervana has a review of the place, and there's more about the beers at BeerAdvocate, Beer Me!, and PubCrawler.

Pleasant as those beers were, what I really wanted was an IPA. One of their guest taps was something called "Vortex IPA", from somewhere called "Fort George Brewing". I hadn't heard of them or the beer, and although it sounded promising, I was on a mission to try the house brews. Rules (or guidelines) are rules (or guidelines).

Turns out that Ft. George Brewing is local, just up the road in Astoria. I thought about heading up there around dinnertime, since I was staying in Astoria that night, but I ended up just falling asleep instead. I left town before lunch the next day, since I had to go catch a ferry, so I haven't actually been there or tried their beer yet. But here's their building, for future reference:



My rule (ok, guideline) for the trip as a whole (not just the beer) was to focus on places I'd never been before, so I didn't drop by Astoria Brewing or the local Rogue outlet. Not because they aren't worth visiting, far from it. It's just that I usually always go to Astoria Brewing when I'm out there, and there's a Rogue outpost a short stagger from my office.


A couple of days later, I drove for hours in the hot sun to get to Crater Lake, and then I spent a couple more hours in the hot sun taking photos, so once again I decided it was time for a beer. The drive was a bit longer this time, but worth it. Klamath Falls has two brewpubs, believe it or not. I only had time for one, so I decided to visit Klamath Falls Brewing, since I knew the least about it. The other brewery, Mia's & Pia's, is primarily a pizza place and I wasn't in the mood for pizza just then, so that's how I made the call. Unscientific, I know, but that's just how it is sometimes.





Klamath Basin had their Crystal Springs IPA on tap, bless their hearts. I've since realized I've seen it as a guest tap here and there in Portland, but I'd always passed over it in favor of something else. That was a big mistake. I'd been missing out on a really great beer.

The beer menu says their most popular brew is their golden ale, and gently hints that the IPA is very hoppy and might be on the bitter side for some people. That's the sort of thing I love to see: They're making the beer they want to make, and aren't dumbing it down for the newbies. A good rule (ok, guideline) is to always order the beer the beer menu warns you about. I seem to recall the IPA ran in the 80-9O IBU range, at something like 5-6% abv. I really ought to have written it all down, but I didn't, and I'm sorry. It's loaded with nice citrusy Northwest hops, I remember that much. If you see it around town, or you find yourself in K-Falls, give it a try. And if you're in K-Falls, the grilled tri-tip sandwich is what to eat. You can't go wrong with fish on the coast, and east of the Cascades you generally can't go wrong with beef. Eating anything other than beef on that side of the mountains has really got to count as unpatriotic or something.

Yes, I'm afraid I only had time for the one beer, since I still had to head east another couple of hours to get to my hotel. Klamath Basin also had a red that sounded promising, but it'll have to wait until next time, I guess.

At the time I didn't realize the brewery runs on geothermal heat, possibly the only one in the world to do so. Is that cool, or what?

More about the place at RateBeer, Road Brewer, and GuestOnTap.

A couple of days after that, I'd spent an hour or two in the hot sun at the Painted Hills, and decided it was time for... cider. For a change. Actually I was under strict spousal orders to drop by Bad Seed Cider over in Bingen, WA, just across the bridge from Hood River. We'd run across their cider at a Spring Beer & Wine Festival a couple of years back. They don't have any distribution at all in Portland, so every now and then we have to make the trip out to Bingen to stock up. This time it was so we'd have something good to drink during the Tour de France, instead of our usual cheap French rose.

I unaccountably forgot to take a photo of the place. It's a little storefront right in downtown Bingen, and I actually missed it the first couple of times through town because their new sign now reads "North Shore Wine Cellars". They do wine in addition to cider, and wine is a much larger market, so I suppose that's an understandable decision. I mention this so a.) you can find the place, and b.) you won't be intimidated by the phrase "wine cellars".

You might've gathered by now that I'm rather fond of their cider. If you like your cider dry, you just might enjoy it too. If you don't, I really don't have any useful advice to offer you, except maybe to grow some taste buds, already.

And yes, I'd been there before, despite what the rules say. You see, there are rules (and guidelines), and then there are spousal directives, which are another matter entirely.

So as I've already said, the trip wasn't primarily about beer, and I strayed from the Path of Beer on a few occasions. So since we aren't being strict here, I might as well throw in something beery that isn't from the mini-roadtrip at all, while I'm at it.

I was out near Estacada the other day, doing a bit of exploring that I haven't posted about yet, and once again I decided it was time for a beer. This time it was really close at hand, since Estacada has its own brewpub. Seriously. You run across Fearless Brewing at a lot of the local beer festivals, always featuring their Scottish Ale. That's a good rendition of the style, I understand, but the style itself is not among my favorites. I figured I'd check the place out and see if they had something that suited my personal biases a bit better.



The IPA was pretty good. I think I may have liked the Klamath Basin one better, but it's not like I had the two to taste side by side. I mentioned this was unscientific, right?

Believe it or not, I didn't try the tater tots. Tater tots are fine, or way more than fine, usually. When you're having a bratwurst & sauerkraut, though, what you really want is a pile of onion rings on the side. But you knew that already.



You know, come to think of it, I think it's about time for a beer right now. Mmmmm...... beeeer......