Photo Contest: "Overview"

Astoria, Oregon ~ July 14, 2005

Guest Photographer: Debbie Loyd

This gorgeous view from the bridge (you can see its shadow on the water) gives about as good an overview of the Astoria waterfront as you're going to get. For those who know the town, I don't need to point out the landmarks, but this blog has readers from around the world and across the country, so . . . here are just a few of them. (I've left the photo large, so when you click on the image and then click on it again in a new window, you'll be able to "walk through" the picture.)

At the top of the hill is the Astoria Column. The teeny little bit of red along the water at the far left is Pier 39, with Coffee Girl, kayak rentals, Rogue Ales Pub, and much more (it used to be the Bumblebee Cannery). Just to the right out of the picture is the Holiday Inn Express, where I took a number of pictures last June. The white buildings in front are warehouses, and The River Walk and Riverfront Trolley run right along the water. The cluster of buildings in the middle of the photo is downtown Astoria.

Thanks to Debbie Loyd for this grand submission. She can be found at the following links, where you can also learn about one of the businesses (or services) that helps make Astoria about its special people:

. Web site

. Blog

Thanks to Jan for the following comment:

FYI, Pier 39 used to be Bumble Bee Cold Storage. The Cannery was much farther west, across the street from the Pig ‘n Pancake. In the 1950s and 1960s, you used to see trucks driving from the cold storage plant through town to the canary with these huge “things” sticking straight up in the beds of the trucks. Those “things” were yellow fin tuna that had been kept frozen at the cold storage plant until the canary was ready for them. I was one of the first two guides hired by Bumble Bee to take visitors on tours of the canary, and I worked there the summers of 1960 and 1961. Tourists often asked me about the strange looking “trees” they saw on trucks around town.

Jan

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