Goonies

The 1985 flick Goonies was filmed almost entirely in Astoria, Oregon - with a handful of shots also at Cannon Beach. We visited both of these spots today and it made Yahtzee very happy.

He is a Goonies fan.

As for me, our bike ride this morning to explore Astoria and a Street 14 Coffee joe (recommended by some locals) made me happy. 

I am a biking & coffee fan (though not at the same time).

After such an eventful morning, we finished our trip of the coast and headed out on US 2 east. We refueled at a roadside expresso (these expresso kiosks are very popular around here) before taking off - the coffee only just meeting a standard level of expectation despite the wonderful show and conversation with Debbie pictured here...

Come dusk, we should have stayed in the first town Snohomish, which is quaint and has lots of restaurants and hotels to choose from. But we decided, without actually communicating with one another, that maybe it best we press on and try to max out the hour of daylight we had remaining. Somewhere along the way we lost sight of the fact that US 2 would be a bit less populated than the Pacific Coast.

We first tried a hotel in Index, population of 157. The 100 year old Bush House Inn was closed.  Then we almost hit a buck that was standing steadily in the middle of the road as we sped out of Index.

Next we tried Skykomish, a bit more populous - 214 according to the 2000 census.  As our outdated road trip book puts it, a "...quirkish and engaging place".  It was pretty deserted when we arrived - and looked like a construction zone. We learned from a lone 20-something year old hanging out in the darkness on his computer by the library (free internet access I am guessing) that the town rebuilding was actually a result of oil spill efforts.  The whole picture did not fit for us city folk. We ran scared.

Finally we somehow we found ourselves lost inside a Three Brothers Grimm fairytale land in Leavenworth, Washington - a town who made itself over as a Bavarian Village in an effort to reinvent itself after the railroad was diverted in the 1920's. We are staying in Bavarian Lodge which is decked out in carved deer fixtures and stuffed teddy bears.  Suffice it to say, it has been a bizarre evening.

We will continue to Montana tomorrow in hopes to camp with our friends.

Guten Nacht from Washington.

xo -  hansel and gretel