Day 9: Hanging at Fort Stevens and a bit of Astoria

It was still a bit rainy in the morning, so I decided to head out and try to find the Native American longhouse, since Orion was really interested in seeing it AND there was a geocache there lol. I went to the area I had noted down from looking on the map, and we came up across a locked gate. I could see what looked like old military structures on the other side, and a sign that said we needed a pass - drat!

So I decided to drive around the neighborhood a bit. What an interesting area! This structure, which looks like maybe a guard house or something, is just sitting next to the street in front of somebody's house! There are little military this and thats all over the place.
Then on a fluke I decided to drive into the area where the military history museum is. Um, oh, duh. Turns out this whole huge area was what was on the other side of the fence lol! For some reason I didn't think the longhouse was on State Park land, but it is!

Tippy points the way!
Path to the house.

"What's in here...?"
Tippy finds a nice perch.
Ooooooh. Mama found the cache, and the kids spent about an hour burying their new little treasures in the dirt and refinding them. Orion liked to bury something and then mark it with an X for me to dig up. Or sometimes he would make comments like, "In a thousand years, such and such is dug up...." Think he was getting into the anthropology groove LOL.
This whole area was so cool! There is a walking tour you can go on that I would love to come back and do when the weather is a bit more reliable (is that ever in the PNW haha?) Stairs to a mystery structure....
Turned out to be the base of a command station.
Like I said, a big area! We had been to the batteries closer to the campground, so I had no idea such another place was here!
I love the way part of this building stuck out through the hill.
Another cool old structure.
And you too could picnic in the remains of what used to be a military fire station!

The weather was getting lovely, so I decided to hit what I thought would be a fast cache and then head to the beach. We got near Ground Zero, as the geocachers say, and saw that the whole area around the tree was surrounded by ground water. Luckily Orion was wearing Crocs and didn't mind going in after it.
Tippy waiting of the cache and noticing some signs of Spring.
Intrepid Boy makes it out with the find!
Gorgeous view from here - could see all the way to Astoria!
Then it was on to beach near the shipwreck. Busy kids:



We wrapped the day up with Thai food and The Fantastic Mr. Fox at a lovely old second run theater in Astoria. Nice last night of a long trip and looking forward to going home tomorrow.