Youngs Bay after the rain

This is not the Columbia River. It's Youngs Bay. This bay and the rivers that feed it are the other half of what makes Astoria a peninsula, and they come together at the point of the peninsula. I took this photo from the Astoria side just before the bay joins the Columbia River. The new Youngs Bay Bridge crosses from Astoria at the confluence of the bay and the river, and is just to the right, out of sight in this photo. The old Youngs Bay Bridge is still used and connects the two sides of the bay further upriver to the left of this photo. The Lewis and Clark River and Youngs River both feed into the bay, which becomes wide here before it enters the mighty Colombia, although it's actually much smaller than the Columbia. Youngs Bay is filled with interesting sights and provides docking for many fishing boats, which fish the bay or pass under the bridges into the Columbia and the ocean.

Young's River was named in 1792 by Lieutenant William Broughton of the Captain George Vancouver expedition, after Sir George Young of the British Royal Navy. Over the years, the apostrophe seems to have been dropped, and also the bay took on the name of the river. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in 1805, they named this body of water Merriweather Bay after Merriweather Lewis, and they gave Youngs River a long native name. Both have been discarded, and now both the river and Bay retain the name of Young. The camp site of the Lewis and Clark Expedition during the winter of 1806 is not far away. By water, you would follow the Lewis and Clark River (which opens into the bay's far side) a short distance to the picturesque location.