On Saturday, we awoke feeling severely-not-up-to-climbing-the-hill to the Astoria Column, which had been MY plan of the day.
So we had to resort to Plan #2 (Jeff's) to do the walking tour of historic Astoria.
There were, get this, 67 historic sites in the pamphlet.
All of which Jeff wanted to see.
Really.
That's a lot of walking and READING ALOUD FROM THE PAMPHLET.
Astoria is VERY HILLY.
In case you didn't know.
So off we went.
I have to admit that I was gradually won over.
How can you not love this....
...or this?
Most of these houses are 150 years old or more. They have been lovingly restored and DO NOT have double-glazed windows. Beautiful they might be, but you couldn't pay me to live there in Astoria's chilly winters.
The early pioneers of Astoria were a hardy bunch, building houses and rebuilding after fires and floods, and sometimes inexplicably moving houses just because they wanted to. I mean, actually MOVING the houses. How did they move houses this big, sometimes several blocks, in the beginning of the 20th century?
These two houses used to be one and were physically split in two by one of the owners. The one on the left holding up quite well. Not so the house on the right, which is dilapidated.
How would you like to have to climb all these stairs at the end of your day?
This one, just because I like it.
I like this solution to sharing the road.
Apparently, when cars came into vogue, the carriage drivers kicked up a fuss at having them on the road. So the city built a brick section down the middle of each road for the horses. The cars went left and right. Some sections are still visible.
Yes, we saw ALL 67 buildings.
And read every description in the pamphlet.
Yawn.
You'll forgive me, but I can never think of Astoria without thinking of the movie "The Goonies." :)
ReplyDeleteMe too. That movie was staple fare for our kids. You know, I think that house is a little further up the mountain than we were. Anyway, I don't suppose it merits a mention on the "historic tour."
ReplyDelete