
Across the Young's Bay Bridge from Astoria is the town of Warrenton, and the first thing you find there is a shopping center. It's not a mall, but the closest approximation we have to one. I enjoy buying locally in locally-owned stores, but sometimes the shopping center is as convenient as it is dull, and sometimes I shop here because it has what I'm looking for that I can't find in town. (There is, by the way, no mall in Astoria proper, and I'm just as happy about that.)
At the end of a long day, I sometimes like to kick back in Starbucks' anonymous and predictable lounge, sip a predictable drink, and open an unpredictable book. That's my red backpack in the lower left corner of the photo and the arm of my easy chair in the lower right. Outside the window you can just see a banner made up of four
Dungeness crabs, which are caught in the waters here. The banners line the edge of the otherwise-featureless parking lot. I like them. Sometime I'll take their picture in better light. At the moment, I'm just relaxing.