After I was finally able to pick Kyle up, a day late due to airline issues, we were back on track to continue this fun adventure. The first mission that we were on was crossing off an item off of Kyle's bucket list. This item was to visit Brownsville, OR, which is where 'Stand By Me' was filmed, Kyle's all time favorite movie. It was really fun to watch Kyle "reenact" every scene that we could find info on, or the famous ones that is, obviously you can't reenact an entire movie in a day, but it was really fun to walk where Gordy walked. The only thing that we really didn't get a good picture of is Gordy's house, because there are people living there and we chose to respect their privacy. The name of the town in the movie is actually "Castlerock" and is a very quint little town 30 years ago. Brownsville is a little bit different now, its a little bigger than we expected it to be, streets are paved now and there are definitely a lot more houses than we expected, but I think that time does that to any town. I personally found it to be an adorable little town, and I was excited to just walk around and check things out.
"Hey look! A penny!" - Vern
The tree house tree
We were able to stretch the tour out long enough to give us the excuse to have lunch in Brownsville. We decided on the Brownsville Saloon, which is the bar that Ace and Eyeball came out of before the confrontation with Gordy and Chris in the movie, so we thought "if its good enough for Ace and Eyeball, its good enough for us."
After visiting Brownsville we headed up to Corvallis with the trailer because our 2-day free window was up for staying at the mall in Eugene. I had been hoping that we would be able to spend some time in Corvallis, it is a town that I have always been interested in visiting, and my old friend Martha lives there, and it would be wonderful to catch up with her too. It is a college town, which I enjoy very much, because they always have a very warm and welcoming feel to them. There is also a really neat river trail that runs through town that was fun to walk about with the puppies. We were able to find a site at the Benton County Fairgrounds in Corvallis, so we packed up our home and headed North. I was a little nervous about staying at the fairgrounds with out knowing what to expect, but it was actually one of our favorite parks that we have stayed at so far. There were huge grass lawns everywhere and the spots were big enough that you didn't feel crowded at all. Plus there was access to a walking path just down the street from the fairgrounds, so it really was a dog owners heaven.
A giant picnic table at the fairgrounds, not one single seam in this giant table
Look! A covered bridge on the walking path!!
After setting up camp, we went of to Block 15 for a beer and appetizer with Ms Martha Rideout. It was so fun to catch up with her. We hadn't seen her since she left Carbondale three years ago. It was wonderful to hear how much she loved Oregon, and she just genuinely is happy. Its always fun to get reassurance that sometimes just taking the leap is the hardest part, which is what she did when she left Colorado. We visited with here for a couple of hours, before going our separate ways for the evening.
The next morning we drove up to the Alsea Falls just outside of Alsea, Oregon. Sometimes the directions from the google maps app are a little sketchy and really don't seem like they are taking you to the proper place. Today was one of those days. I had a little bit of experience with this in Coos Bay, but it was really the first time that Kyle noticed it. The directions from the phone were telling us to turn off of the main road onto some random forest road instead of staying on the main road. I had told Kyle that in my experience, its better just to stay on the main road because for some reason its always a little weird. So we did for a little bit, but Kyle's gut reaction was to follow the blue line, and go where it was telling us to go. So we let the adventurous spirit take over and we followed the blue line. Well the blue line lead us really far back into the woods on an old dirt road. The dirt road, was the only road that we could follow at this point, and it too eventually veered from the blue line. So we just drove around for a little while before deciding that we will get nowhere but far away from the falls on this road and decided to turn around and head back toward the main road. On the way back to the main road we noticed another road off to the left, leading in the direction of the falls. We noticed that the sign did say that it was a locked gated road, but we figured that maybe it would get us close enough to at least walk to the falls. Well the road definitely got us closer to the main road, it actually dead ended at a campground that was on the main road, just on the backside of it. Fortunately for us, a gentleman happened to be riding his bike right by the gate and we were able to ask him where the falls are. His answer made me giggle a lot, he said that the falls were about a 1/4 mile up the main road and there was a big sign on the side of the road marking them. Which is exactly what I thought initially, silly Kyle. Now were are literally 1/4 mile away from the falls but we will have to backtrack about 3.5 miles just to be able to get to them.
After a 5 point turn to get back up to the main road, we were back on the main road and pulling into the falls parking area. The trail to the falls ended up being relatively short, but the falls were pretty to check out. There were about three different tiers to the falls, with only about a ten foot drop between each tier, not the most impressive size wise I've seen, but beautiful still the same. We wondered about the trails for about 30 minutes before Frank started acting like something was attacking him. As I went in to get a close look at what it might be, I noticed a few bees flying around again and fear that we had disturbed another ground nest and opted to get out as quick as possible.
Once we were back at the parking lot we thought a lot about what to do next. We decided that we have been talking about wanting to explore different towns but end up never spending any time in these said towns. We decided that we would do just that today, so we headed back to Corvallis and check out the town. We were able to catch the Saturday morning Farmers Market downtown on the river path. It was honestly one of the best farmers markets that I have been too thus far. There were a lot of booths, and I even saw one selling Norwex, which made me smile because I love seeing other MLM people out here making it work. I hope that it was a fruitful day for her. We purchased some raspberries at one of the booths, then ended up eating them as we walked around, which is fine, it kept us from just buying things because we were hungry.
After the farmers market we caught some lunch at a downtown pizza place, then headed back to camp before catching a baseball game that evening. The Corvallis Knights are a club baseball team based out of Corvallis, and the players come from colleges all over to complete the team. The OSU stadium was a cool stadium, and of course they served beer, so we sat on the party deck and had a couple of beers, a hot dog, and had great time.
After Corvallis we were headed to Seaside for the 4th of July. Seaside is strategically located in-between Astoria and Cannon Beach, which for Goonies movie fans like myself, this is excellent! After dropping off the trailer in Seaside, we headed down to Cannon Beach first. Cannon Beach was a BUSY little town. People everywhere. Of course we wanted to head to the beach first to check out the famous Haystack Rock from the Goonies movie. This beach was insane, It was like Spring Break in Florida or something, there were that many people there. Luckily people were really cool and there were no issues with the pups even though it was apparently 'bring your dog to the beach day." We wandered around the beach for about an hour and made our way to Haystack Rock. Haystack Rock is in the back ground of a couple of scenes in the movie Goonies. The first scene you see it in was the beach race at the beginning of the movie and then again, right as the boys climb on top of the bluff before entering the restaurant. I was just as cool in person as it was in the movies, maybe that is because all i could hear in my head was "HEY YOU GUYS!!!!"
We were able to catch the 4th of July Parade in Seaside and it was so much fun. I hadn't seen that many people at a parade in years. It brought a lot of happiness and pride to my heart to see that many people out, being patriotic and celebrating this great country that we call home.
After the parade we headed back to Cannon Beach to check out Ecola State Park and continue on our Goonies movie locations tour. The first lookout point that we got to in the park, is actually the location of where the restaurant in the movie was. The restaurant was just built for the filming of the movie, so you can't see that, but it was still fun to look out and see the rocks that the Goonies looked at when they decided they were in the right place. We headed over to Indian Beach next, and decided to take the Clatsop Loop trail and exercise the pups. When we got on the trail, a fellow on his bike stopped and asked us how familiar we were with the area, and said that he was trying to find the exact spot from the Goonies movie. Luckily we were able to direct him to the proper location since we were just there. The hike was beautiful, just like every hike we have been on, and it definitely wore out the pups.
after our hike we decided to have a little bit of fun in Seaside before the fireworks. And of course do a little people watching, because this was a prime spot for it!
We finished up our Goonies movie tour the next day in Astoria. The first stop though was breakfast. I had read several reviews about the Columbian Cafe in Astoria, and everyone of them said that it was the best place to go. I honestly have to say that this was the first time since Ventura, CA that I would completely agree with the reviews. It was amazing!! We chose a spot at the counter and were watching the cook work his magic on other patrons breakfast. I have had an issue lately deciding on what to eat from a menu, and fortunately for me, they have an option for people just like me. Its called Chefs Mercy, you give the chef a little bit of an idea of what you like and he just makes what ever he thinks you need. The coolest part about it was watching him cook all your food. I kept watching him cut up veggies to saute, and bacon to mix with it, and then he made a crepe. I honestly feel like I was drooling watching, but I had no idea if that was what i was getting or not, because there were other tables in there as well. So imagine how happy I was when he served me a mushroom, rainbow chard and bacon filled crepe topped with basil pesto sauce. Honestly to most amazing breakfast that I've ever had. I have also trying to not eat to where i feel miserable lately, but today I made an exception, I just couldn't stop eating this delicious creation in front of me. I highly recommend this place to anyone who ever ends up in Astoria. Trust me you will not be disappointed.
Now that Kyle and I were both officially miserably full, we decided to continue on our Movie Tour. The first stop was the Oregon Film Museum, which was the scene of the Clatsop County Jail in the movie. We were also thrilled to see that the Jeep that the terrible humans, the Fratellis, drove in the movie. Complete with a neat ORV, and BULLET HOLES!! It was awesome. Across the street was the museum that Mikey and Brandon's dad was working at as they rode by on their bikes. The only place that we didn't get to take a good picture of was the Goonie House. In the past the owner would let people come up and walk around, and occasionally gave a tour of the house, but people are assholes. After years of dealing with vandalism and garbage, the owner decided that she no longer was a fan of Goonies, and has since removed the privilege of viewing the house up close. At one point she had actually put up a trap to prevent people from even looking at the house, its since been taken down, and the the house can still be seen from a couple of blocks away.
Now that our Goonies tour was complete we decided to head out to Fort Stevens and try to wear out the pups a little bit. Honestly, this ended up being the highlight of my day. We drove to a beach in Fort Stevens, which technically was still in the mouth of the Columbia River, but it definitely still looked like ocean. While we were there we took playing fetch with the pups in the water because it definitely wears them out. Imagine my surprise as I throw a stick out for Frank, and then see a whale surface in the water about 40 yards beyond where it landed. I was so excited that I started screaming "OH MY GOODNESS!!! DID YOU SEE THAT!!!" To which Kyle just gives me a funny look because he didn't see it. As he asks me what I am talking about, I yell "ITS A WHALE!!!" and take off running down the beach in hopes of seeing it again, leaving Frank wondering why no one was throwing his stick any more. Trigger was chasing me down the beach when we both saw him surface again, at this point I collected myself enough to put her back on leash, just in case she decided she needed to see if she could retrieve it or something. I probably ran up and down the beach for good 20 minutes trying to get a good picture of him. I never was able to capture the best picture, but I did get at couple of videos, and just missed getting the pic when he really breeched out of the water. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen.. I was like a little kid having chocolate for the first time, I was so excited to see my first whale. I kept telling Kyle I can't wait to see another one, to which he replies "I can't wait to watch you when you see another one." Apparently it doesn't take much to entertain me.
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