A WALK ALONG THE COLUMBIA

It's nice that Chris and Sera, Joe and Griselda and families live just across the Columbia from each other now. Just a 15 minute ride. Last weekend the brothers and kids got together for a hike and found a deserted beach on the river. Not only did they find a deserted beach, a very appealing discovery to those boys of yesterday, but they found some old abandoned bricks. Wow! Something to build with! So they spent a pleasant Fall afternoon building a castle, while the kids built sand castles and watched an ocean-going vessel come up the channel. I wish I could have been there, but I chuckle to think of the fun they all must have had.

HALLOWEEN AT THE JENSEN HOME

Chris and Milo proudly display the four pumpkins they grew themselves!!

A LITTLE FAMILY REUNION IN ASTORIA

Linda and Herb sailed in on the Princess to Astoria where Nathan lives, so we came to visit, as did Chris and Milo on Oct 1st. We had a wonderful day together. We visited a mansion, went to the historic Astoria Column on the hill and saw the view. Then Herb took us all to lunch. Linda and I saw some beautiful things in a shop there but had to rush along to the Boat Museum (as Milo called it----actually the Maritime Museum), where Milo loved the sailboat. He took his shoes off and laid down on the bunk in the boat. He also loved navigating at the controls.

After all this fun we had to say goodbye to Linda and Herb. We then took Milo on a trolley ride and then said goodbye to everybody and went on to Vancouver and spent the night with Joe and Griselda before heading home. So here is our wonderful trip!!

This is a beautiful old mansion we toured. Inside everything was so beautifully crafted; we just oohed and aahed. Every window was covered in wooden slats and panes and sashes, and wooden workmanship was everywhere. There were lovely oriental tiles in the fireplaces and oriental wallpaper. I've never seen such an elegant mansion anywhere. The owner was a very wealthy Danish shipping magnate.

Astoria is built on hills, and almost feels like a miniature San Francisco with its streets going straight up and down. The houses are victorian and there are many beautiful old mansions. People are buying them and fixing them up, and it is becoming a nice retirement community. Linda and I would have loved to shop at the many crafty bohemian little shops downtown!

Nathan's house is on the hill. He has a great view of the mouth of the Columbia, the ocean beyond, the bridge, and the ships that come in.

Linda and I in front of Astoria's bridge; Herb and Nathan on an old sailing vessel.

After dropping Herb and Linda off at their boat, Chris and Milo, Nathan and Val and I took the trolly car the whole length of Astoria, as it follows the Columbia river. The man who "drives" the trolly narrates the history of Astoria as we go, and it was very interesting. The town was settled by many Scandanavian immigrants who came there as fishermen, and they built their houses with very steep roofs to keep off the show, not knowing that it doesn't snow in Astoria. We saw many very interesting houses, many of them old Nordic mansions with steep roofs on the hillsides in the east side of Astoria.

OCTOBER IN THE HIGH DESERT

Here in the TriCities we have a lot of color, but in the desert around us, fall color consists of mainly the sage brush, poplar and aspen trees, and the brown hills. It has its own beauty.

Our October garden has sunflowers as tall as trees and ripening fuji apples, squash and pumpkins, grapes, hordes of tomatoes, and of course the ever faithful zucchini and summer squash, green beans, chard, and lettuce. Val dug up the yukon gold potatoes yesterday to store with the squash.

With this cooler weather our plentiful summer blackberry crop is dwindling. We go out to pick every day and still have blackberries for breakfast, but we find fewer and fewer ripening ones.