Last February when I realized the Great Columbia Crossing 10K worked with our crazy schedule, I recruited Karann to go with me. The 10K has been on my list for years. Ever since we first went to Cannon Beach and drove through Astoria, the Astoria-Megler Bridge has intrigued me. I kind of have a thing for bridges but I don’t really like being on them. Especially not really tall ones. Fear of heights I suppose. In all of the years driving through Astoria, we’ve never once driven over the Astoria-Megler Bridge; I’ve always just admired it from below. It’s a beautiful bridge.
Karann was down and I quickly booked a hotel and signed up to be notified when the 10K registration opened. They limit how many folks can participate; I wanted to be sure we snagged spots when registration opened in June. Spoiler: we snagged spots. The trip was officially on.
The plan was to leisurely drive down Saturday and spend the night in Astoria, and do the 10K Sunday morning before driving back home. Easy. And that’s exactly what we did—with some fun stops along the way.
Saturday
It was about 10:30am when I met Karann at her place in Queen Anne. I left my car there and Karann drove, which is always a nice break—all I do is drive kids around. We pulled out after a quick hello to her adorable kitties. We knew we’d need to stop for lunch and Karann had a place in mind. The Bee Hive Restaurant in Montesano. Two places I had never heard of before. Karann is a native Washingtonian and said she used to hit up the Bee Hive when she was younger on the way to visit her grandmother. Another bonus of Karann driving, I learned a new way to get to Astoria. Of course this is now the way we’ll go to Cannon Beach when we go in spring.
Montesano felt very small town. The vibe check was off. It didn’t help that there was a man wearing a red hat. Old white guy, of course. And a mom with two young kids; one kid was wearing a Jesus shirt. Maybe it was just that one street but it was cute and all. I’ll give it that. And the Bee Hive is adorable. And the food was as expected. A small town American diner. No complaints. But then again, I’m not a foodie or a very exciting eater. We ate and and chatted before we pulled out an hour or so later. Next up was a stop in Long Beach—or so we thought.
Driving on the two-lane road toward Long Beach, I saw what looked like a whale skeleton. Karann quickly stopped, pulled over, and flipped a bitch. Haha, I just told this to the kids, that this is another way of saying U-Turn. They weren’t impressed, probably more appalled. Turns out it was a fake whale skeleton, an art installation, at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.
We parked and checked out the whale art. There is the start of a boardwalk next to the the whale so of course we checked it out. It’s a trail that leads to more art installations—fish, mushrooms, and feathers— and another trail up a hill, which we decided against going up because shoes. We nosed about about a half-hour, admiring the art and landscape before loading back up for Long Beach.
Long Beach wasn’t much further. Maybe 20 minutes, if that?! Google tells me it’s an 11 minute drive, 4.2 miles away. Karann wanted to hit up Marsh’s Free Museum to see Jake, the half-man, half-alligator. Haha. I was intrigued. And I had never been to Long Beach (the Washington one). Great little town.
Marsh’s Free Museum didn’t disappoint. What a fun, odd, interesting, clutter-filled place. I cannot wait to take Baby there, I know she’ll be all about the oddities. And, Jake. We must have spent a good 45 minutes in there, nosing about and looking at all the things nobody needs.
Before leaving Long Beach, we decided to check out the beach. We found a beach parking lot and took off on foot on a beautiful wooden boardwalk that parallels the beach, between the actual beach and dunes. Walking north, we saw a ton of kites in the distance. Passing a woman also walking on the boardwalk, she said they have an annual kite festival but it is usually in August. Maybe this wasn’t the actual festival and just people gathering to fly kites?! Not sure; we didn’t ask. We only admired the kites.
Long Beach is beautiful and all, I mean any beach and the Pacific Ocean is beautiful. But it’s not my kind of beach. I’m not the biggest fan of beaches that people can drive on. And I like beaches that have something around, like how Cannon Beach has Haystack Rock and Pismo Beach has cliffs along the north end. Perhaps I’m picky but whatever.
It was time to make the half-hour drive to Astoria. And that meant driving across the Astoria-Megler Bridge for the my first time. The drive was smooth and uneventful. I made it across the bridge without any issues; usually my feet and palms get sweaty. Maybe I was mentally prepared. And it probably helps that the first mile or two is relatively low on the Columbia River before the bridge gets super high. I have to say, heading this way to Astoria is much better than going through Kelso. Noted for our next Cannon Beach trip.
It wasn’t quite time to check into the hotel. We decided to stop and get our race packets first. Astoria is so freaking cute. The city building we picked up our packets looked like it was out of a set of Gilmore Girls. A quaint little building with eclectic workers in there. It was a quick process; we were maybe there 10 minutes total. We still had ample time before the hotel check in at 4pm. To Seaside we went. There’s a small outlet mall there and since Oregon is sales tax-free, we decided to see if there was anything worth buying.
Seaside is maybe a half-hour from Astoria. We made it to the outlet mall which is kind of sad. There used to me more stores there but now it feels half-empty. We hit up a few stores before actually finding something at the Nike store. Karann found shoes; I found a hoodie. Next up we stopped at another shoe store and I found some clearance Birkenstocks for $30 that happened to be my size. Score. After a quick stop at Safeway for some supplies, it was time to drive back to Astoria to check into the hotel. Which turned into a clusterfuck.
Checking into the hotel was smooth. I gave them my name and they gave me the room key. Karann and I walk up to our room only to discover it’s occupied. We go back down to the front desk to tell the stoned worker. He was confused and after some questions, he realized he gave our room to another woman with the same last name as me. They have no other rooms. Great. He calls down the woman in our room. We wait and he finds us the room she booked. Not the riverfront room I booked—the other lady scored our room for the non-riverfront room rate. Not her fault. We go up to room number two. It was dirty with the beds unmade, bathroom a mess, and trash overflowing from the trash can. We go back down. No more rooms. At this point, we just want to put our stuff down. There was a call to the manager, there was computer screen checking, there were more calls to the manager, then he disappeared behind a closed door. He came back out and there’s magically a room now. With a view of the parking lot. Lovely. Fine, whatever. We just wanted a room at this point.
We head up to the room and put our stuff down. On our way out to dinner, I stop and ask about the room charge. Like, we shouldn’t be paying the riverfront rate for a parking lot view. He says he’ll call me. Karann and I left for dinner. We found a cute little Mexican restaurant not far from the hotel. While cute, it wasn’t very good. But enjoyable. While we were there, the stoned hotel guy called me and said there’s nothing he can do about the rate. Whatever. I figure I’ll deal with it later. It’s always something.
After dinner, we went back to the hotel to hit the hay. One of the benefits of traveling with Karann is she likes to go to bed early. We were lights out by 10pm. We had an early morning—we had to catch the 10K shuttle by 7am.
Sunday
Neither of us slept well. Probably the bad hotel room, haha. We were up early Sunday morning and out to catch the shuttle by 7am. The shuttle was at the hotel next door. We loaded Karann’s car and checked out before making the short walk next door. The line was fairly long. The shuttles were school busses, and I think we barely made it on the second bus. I’m impressed how many people fit on school busses.
Back over the bridge to the Washington side. We were corralled into a rest stop called Dismal Nitch. The fun thing about these kind of events, is everyone is in a good mood. Even when it’s super early. We were there maybe 90 minutes before the race started. We knew we were walking and lined up toward the back. The race started and the mass of people took off. We hadn’t even made it out of the rest stop when you could see a few runners on the bridge. It took a bit with the big crowd. And it didn’t feel like it thinned out much like in other races. Maybe because there is limited road space, being a bridge and all.
It was super foggy. A positive and negative. It helped with my fear of heights because I couldn’t tell how high above the water I was. But kind of disappointing because there wasn’t the beautiful view I was looking forward to seeing. We took our time; we weren’t in this 10K to get a particular time or anything. It was a neat experience. Not sure how to describe it other that it felt like we were somewhere we shouldn’t be but yet we were allowed to be there. And while the views weren’t great, being able to take in the bridge structure that close was amazing.
Fun fact about the bridge. I was telling a friend I was heading down to Astoria for the 10K. She told me her mother-in-law’s dad was an engineer for the bridge, back when her mother-in-law was a child. Her dad took some of her baby teeth—along with others who worked on the bridge—and they are cemented into the bridge somewhere. Haha, kind of cool and yet odd. What is with baby teeth and older generations?! My dad did a weird thing with my sister’s and my baby teeth. Our kids, I’ve thrown away all their baby teeth.
Walking down from the bridge, they wind you through a few streets before the finish line to hit the 10K distance. Along these streets were some adorable teenagers—mostly young men—with signs cheering everyone on. I think these kids look forward to cheering every year. I wish I could remember some of the signs because they were amazing. The younger generation is so freaking great.
Karann and I crossed the finish line and grabbed our medals. It was time to take a shuttle back to the hotel where Karann’s car was parked. Something about volunteers who are given power. I realize they have to deal with people, and that some people can be difficult. We saw there were shuttle lines. As we walked up to ask the volunteer woman which line we needed to be in for our hotel, she was announcing the shuttle to our hotel was loading. Great, perfect timing. We started to walk over to the shuttle and she told us to get in another line. Okay? We did. Then we get in the line and she starts yelling last call for the shuttle to our hotel. Okay. So we walk over to the bus and she confirms this is our bus. Not sure why we had to go through her extra steps; we weren’t cutting in front of anyone or anything.
Breakfast time. Lunch maybe? It was past 11am by now. We decided to stop at the Pig ‘N Pancake in Astoria. This is the same restaurant we always hit up when we go to Cannon Beach. We’ve actually never been to the Cannon Beach location but have hit the Astoria, Seaside, Lincoln City, and Newport Pig ‘N Pancakes. Literally all the locations except Cannon Beach, haha. Karann and I weren’t sure they’d have a table for a bit since it was so busy with 10Kers galore. People were waiting outside even. I went inside to ask how long the wait would be while Karann stayed in the car, looking for other restaurant options. Turns out they had a table for two open; everyone else waiting were groups of four. I called Karan and she came inside. We were in-and-out pretty quickly.
It was time to head back to Seattle. Astoria was a success, even with the hotel hiccup. The drive back was uneventful, with a stop at a McDonald’s for ice cream cones. The same McDonald’s we stopped at back when we did the rail riders in Shelton. Not intentionally, but a funny coincidence.
Back home, I still didn’t want to deal with the hotel nonsense. I spent the rest of the Sunday relaxing. Monday morning I emailed the hotel membership people the front desk guy told me to contact and quickly got a response. I ended up talking with the hotel manager and while he was nice, he wasn’t super interested in offering me anything but I could tell corporate told him to handle this. He had the opportunity to do something Saturday night when the stoned front desk guy called him. I probably could have had the entire stay comped but we did stay there, and I felt we shouldn’t get the stay for free. I talked him into half-off, which he quickly agreed to over the phone. I felt good about this and he was apologetic; he kept saying over and over how the front desk people are told to check IDs. I mean, he’s right, but that’s on him.
It sounds like the Great Columbia Crossing 10K will be an annual thing. I already booked a hotel for 2025—a different hotel—and we’re ready to register as soon as it opens, likely in June. I may take the whole family. We’ll have to see how fall looks with all things kids and sports.
jumpingraccoons.com 