Hours of Daylight – 8:55
The son of the building manager where i live works for an airline logistics company. He gets sent all over the place to put out logistical fires and make things happen. When i last saw him, Christmas Eve, he lamented the fact that he was really piling up, “loads of ass-hours on airplanes.”
I am gaining a greater appreciation of the term ass-hours as Annette and i just returned from Astoria, Oregon, and we’re flying out to Boise, ID then Portland, ME in the next two weekends. She’s interviewing with universities, i’m interviewing with realtors.
Astoria, Oregon. We spent New Year’s 1999 —> 2000 there. We stayed in Yurt E at Fort Stevens State Park. We returned to Astoria for my 40th birthday, this time staying at the swanky Hotel Elliot. After a lackluster thanksgiving spent in our telephone-booth sized apartment i vowed not to spend yet another holiday sitting around at home. So, we returned to Yurt E to spend Christmas. Oh, what’s a yurt? Picture’s worth 1,000 words, so go HERE.
We like Astoria. It’s a nifty little town where many things are described using only superlatives. I once said that Duluth, MN, is a small city where everything is done big. Astoria is similar in that it seems like a sleepy little town, but it’s actually quite the focal point of activity both man-made and natural.
Astoria sits not far from the mouth of the Columbia river and was the farthest west permanent settlement as the white man began his “conquest” of the continent. A very large number of very large ships make their way up and down the Columbia. Tankers, freighters, car carriers, bulk carriers, plus a massive commercial fishing fleet all pass across “the Columbia bar” on their way East or West.
The “bar” is actually a bit of a misnomer. It refers to the shifting shallow sand bars in and around the mouth of the Columbia. The Columbia river is a big river draining a very large portion of the Pacific Northwest. It has a nominal 8 knot flow. However the Pacific is tidal with a tide range of 8 to 15 feet depending on weather and the phase of the moon. So you see, when the tide is going out, the ebb tide ADDS to the natural flow of the river producing currents akin to some whitewater rivers.
When the tide reverses it pushes against the flow of the river. But unlike the Hudson in New York, the Columbia does not reverse it’s flow quite as easily. The result is massive waves that crest and break in unpredictable ways due to the ever-shifting sands. Cape Disappointment Coast Guard station is located on the Washington side of the Columbia and is home to the Coast Guard’s big water lifesaving training facility. One cannot help but feel amazement watching large container ships approach the mouth of the river while 20 foot waves crash over the stern.