We flew into Portland, Oregon, late last night and went directly to Rodeway Inn by the airport, where we’ve stayed a number of times and where we’ll stay at the end of this trip before flying back to Phoenix in 10 days. An excellent breakfast and knitting were had at Pine State Biscuits in downtown Portland, and then it was time to braid the Columbia River on our way to the Pacific.

Recreational marijuana is legal up here in Oregon and Washington, so why not stop and inspect the goods as the last time I looked at legal marijuana in a shop was in Amsterdam. This particular shop in Longview, Washington, seemed fitting to the idea of a vacation with the name 420 Holiday. If you are wondering if we bought some weed, come on, do we look like stoners?

From Oregon over to Washington and then Washington back to Oregon.

And then Washington back to Oregon, or something like that. This is the Wahkiakum County Ferry on the Columbia River between Puget Island, Washington, and Westport, Oregon, and it is the last ferry on the river before it dumps into the ocean. Every chance we get, we’ll opt to take a ferry, even if it’s a bit out of the way.

Made it to Astoria, Oregon, and while I’m tempted to drive over that bridge into Washington to go get a coffee and a pastry at Chinook Coffee (love this little roadside shack), we are here early enough to go to this place on the river that has been closed by the time we are passing through on our other visits.

The day started with knitting, so let’s continue with a theme; here at the Columbia River Maritime Museum is a Whalebone Yarn Swift, which was used to hold a skein of yarn while it is wound into a ball.

This floating lighthouse is a Light Ship named Columbia and is a National Historic Landmark. The mouth of the Columbia and the crossing of the “bar” is notoriously treacherous, and this “Light Ship”  helped guide the way. As you might deduce from the available light, we were too late to visit this landmark and so now we have one more reason to come back to Oregon.