July 10 - Volksmarch in Sandy, Oregon and Fort Clatsop

The walk at Sandy, Oregon, was really only a hop, skip, and jump away, by truck that is, and we arrived there about 8:30. The friendly folks of the local club greeted us warmly and were quite surprised that we had driven over 3,000 miles from Virginia just to attend their walk! The walk route started off to the east but then curled back to the twin main streets of Sandy for our first pass through the town. Sandy was having a "Mountain Festival" on that weekend and there was a small carnival kind of pitched in the middle of the town, but it was so early in the morning that absolutely nothing was happening as we walked by.

At the other end of town we turned north and joined an exercise trail circling the Sandy High School, but then we branched off into a nature preserve that was kept in a pristine state by the students! If you had simply walked through the town, you would have never found this little trail and probably never even dreamed it was there, and that is one of the things I like best about Volksmarching. We wandered around in the trails through the preserve, and I enjoyed the play of light on the trees, ferns, and ponds. This area is so temperate and has so much rain that moss grows rather luxuriantly on the shady side of the trunks of the trees, which was just such a contrast from having nothing but sagebrush on the open plains for the past several weeks of our travels.

We exited the nature preserve at the other side of the High School and turned left on the highway for a block or two to a very nice overlook on a bluff from which we could view the valley. In fact, we were looking directly out at Mount Hood, but the clouds obscured everything from the base up and we couldn't see the peak. We could see the beautiful, verdant valley and foothills between the mountain and us, however, and that was quite pretty. This overlook was also the checkpoint for the walk, so I chatted with the checkpoint staff. I continued to chat with a local walker as we returned to town from the overlook, and he informed me that a nice hiker-biker trail was being created from Portland to Sandy and on to Mount Hood. He thought it was already in place between Portland and Sandy, but was not yet completed beyond that.

When we arrived back at the main streets--there are 2 major one-way streets going in either direction in the center of Sandy--we turned left and traversed the downtown area until we hit the park at the other edge of town. The Mountain Festival was in full swing in the park with live entertainment from a youth percussion band--the selections I heard were really quite good--and vendors’ tents were pitched everywhere that space would allow. A few of these tents were for food, but the vast majority were handicrafts of one type or another and we were fascinated by the artistry and creativity of the folks working in media ranging from sheet metal to wood. Actually, we were much too fascinated by this as I became enamored by a beautiful box of purple wood and Monika started lusting after a new wood cutting board and pottery goblets on a wood base. Accumulating those treasures raised the price of this walk from $6 to $116, ouch! Still I ended up with a quite unique wooden case for the Montblanc fountain pens I use for writing letters, Monika got her cutting board, and we each had a fancy new goblet to drink Gatorade!

We toted our treasures back to the center of town where the friendly folks stamped our books, took our picture, and even gave me a replacement pill box for the one I had lost somewhere in the mountain states. You just can't ask for better service! We told them how much we had enjoyed that walk and some of their Year Round Events (YREs) in the area, and then we slid into the truck to take US 26 over to the Pacific coast of Oregon. Our objective for the afternoon was to visit the recreated Fort Clatsop where Lewis and Clark had spent the winter of 1805 to 1806.

We had originally visited this reconstructed fort about 24 years ago when our two sons were quite small, and I was interested to see what had changed in the interim. Although the fort itself had not changed much on this visit, we had to park miles away and take a shuttle bus over to it whereas last time we had just driven in and parked. We paid $5 for this dubious privilege, but the Park Service was hoping that this system would help cope with an expected influx of visitors for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. I was told the parking lots at the fort held only 80 cars but I didn't see even that many spaces for cars in the shuttle bus parking lot, so I'm not quite sure what kind of logic they are using, but I hope it works.

Lewis and Clark named the fort after the Clatsop Indians that they met in this part of the country, with whom they bargained for dugout canoes, whale oil and blubber, and other necessities. The fort itself was a square palisade with two rows of bedrooms on either side. The bedrooms had Park Rangers demonstrating some of the activities of the explorers during the winter of 1805-1806 such as making candles, boiling seawater for salt, hunting for meat and hides, and tanning the hides to make clothes and moccasins. I got to play with a flint and steel to make sparks and made it work surprisingly well, which was fun.

The sun was streaming down through the fairly thick forest all around the fort, but that was not at all the experience that Lewis and Clark and company had while they were in this area of the country. The autumn gales were so fierce at their first stopover point on the north shore of the Columbia River that they relocated to the much more sheltered site on the southern shore to build their winter residence. They lived at Fort Clatsop 162 days and it rained every day except for 12 according to one of the men's journals. They only had clear skies for six out of 162 days! Not very good odds by any shot, and I was not surprised that some of the men were suffering greatly from rheumatism by the end of the stay. I had basic training for my stint in the Army at Fort Lewis a bit north in Washington state, and my experience of the coastal climate in the fall was the same as Lewis and Clark's.

We also visited the spring that the explorers had used for fresh water and the beach where they had stored their dugout canoes and the ones they had obtained from the Clatsops. I am not sure if there was a Visitor Center at the park when we visited last time, but there is a nice one there now with lots of displays and information on the expedition. Unfortunately, the electricity was out while we were there, which made it well nigh impossible to read any of the text. As a result I got out of there in less than half an hour (something of a record for me, I think) and we made the return journey to the parking lot after a tedious wait for the shuttle bus.

We decided to drive back along the Columbia River and then cut over into Washington so that we could take Interstate 5 south for the last part of the journey. The scenery was quite grand with the low mountains and hills rising up across the mighty river, but we were getting tired and hungry by this point and yearned for the comfort of our trailer. We did in fact get back rather late and wolfed down sandwiches, apple sauce, and peanuts (a balanced diet? I think not!) before working on the computers a bit and turning in for the night.