Ilwaco and Astoria

For my work I travel all over SW Washington, sometimes that takes me pretty far away from home. Ilwaco is a small coastal town near Long Beach about 2 1/2 hours away from where I live, there are several fish hatcheries, wild life reserves, and canneries near there. It's in Washington but the quickest way to get there is to cross over the bridge from Longview into Oregon, and then cross back into Washington from Astoria.

The coast was very cold, wet, and windy, but I decided to stop and take pictures of some of my favorite spots to share with you all.

I love this old school, it looks like something out of Silent Hill. I'm dying to do a photo shoot there, but I'm pretty sure I'd get arrested for it.

A cute tiny little church. I have no idea if it's still in use, it seems too small for a congregation. But it is a very small town.

The bridge back to Astoria, it's very long. They decided to build it in this spot because the river is very low here, you could walk across parts of it and it would only come up to your ankles.

Back in Oregon, Astoria is the home of a surprising number of films including Overboard, The Black Stallion, The Ring, Free Willy, and my personal favorite The Goonies. I like the old decrepit spooky houses. They've probably been left alone for several years, and the ocean air makes the paint flake in interesting ways.

The spooky effect gets ruined when you realize how nice the houses around it are.

Then you get houses like this, that while looking well kept are still quite unfortunate. Seafoam with salmon trim and white accents, blech! Also there's a bright orange VW Beetle parked in the driveway.

I believe Astoria had a large Finnish community at one time, there are sections of the old neighborhood with Finnish restaurants and bars. I thought this Finnish Sauna from 1928 was the funniest, apparently saunas are a birth right in Finland. If there was a large Finnish population this was probably a popular gathering place.