Sunday in Oregon

Amazingly I found a UU Fellowship in Astoria, Oregon.  There are only 21 members but they are warm and of varied ages, though they do tend to be on the older side.  They do have a youth program so there must be younger members that I didn't see.  They had a guest minister in the pulpit.  She spoke of prayer and how we do it all the time without even thinking about it.  Like when we say "Don't let me be lost."  The service itself was pretty much like ours which made it very comfortable.  As always the people made me feel so welcome.  We talked about the differences between the Southwest and the Northeast.  It was a very enjoyable morning.

The big draw in Astoria is the Astoria Column that mirrors the look of Trajan's Column in Rome.  It was erected in 1926 to commemorate the pioneer days, including Lewis and Clark.  It is covered in details of the history of Astoria, unfortunately the details are done in blacks and browns.  It was almost impossible to see the details, what I could see was well done.  Even if the column isn't spectacular the view from up there was.  Astoria is at the mouth of the Columbia River and you get lots of major shipping.  This doesn't seem to to affect the sea lions.  There was a rock jetty that the sea lions haul out on at night.  I could hear them most of the evening, even late into the night from my room.  In the morning there were two bald eagles sitting on piling near the jetty.

I then drove to Seattle in the hopes that I can find things to do even on Memorial Day.