Cannon Beach and Astoria

We met up with Jeff's parents in Cannon Beach, Oregon, but because the beach was soooo windy that day, we headed in town for some shopping. Laurel and I found an amazing antique boutique (and some very good fudge!) and the kids found a cute toy shop where they talked their grandpa into buying them lip whistles and a nose whistle - which is as gross as it sounds. We camped just outside of Astoria for a couple of nights and while none of us were overly impressed with the city itself we all loved our visit to the Astoria Column. The column was completed in 1926 and has beautiful scenes depicting local history. We climbed up the 164 steps of the column to an AMAZING view of the mouth of the Columbia river as it feeds into the Pacific Ocean (hello, power) and of the 4+ mile long Astoria-Megler bridge that spans that same river into Washington state. (Look really closely at the second picture to see the bridge. Better yet click on it to see the picture full size. The bridge was awesome!)