{"id":5970,"date":"2026-06-26T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chasethelight.com\/blog\/?p=5970"},"modified":"2026-08-15T13:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T20:29:26","slug":"day-3-portland-to-astoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chasethelight.com\/blog\/day-3-portland-to-astoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 3 – Portland to Astoria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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After a wonderful night of sleep in the upstairs Air BNB<\/s> guest room, Sean and I walked to get some breakfast. Fantastic food and I actually didn’t want to leave Portland today to be honest. Next time will be a few nights to explore more. At least it’s in a days drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I brought my 4×5 camera along and set up an American Gothic style photo of Sean and Jill replete with a spikey rake for authenticity. One of my other goals for this trip was to shoot 4×5 pictures of all my friends on their front porches\/yard\/stairs\/etc. It turned out I didn’t get to see many people so I kept the camera in it’s backpack for the rest of the trip.

So, I’m in Oregon, but now I’ve got to go back into Washington to get back into Oregon to get back into Washington to finally end up back in Oregon tonight. Where I end up is appropriately called Cape Disappointment. Heading north I once again stop at the same northern most In-N-Out Burger for a 11am breakfast hamburger. See, it’s a thing. Back in Washington I turn west and get back into Oregon in about an hour because Oregon has a pokey uppy bit along the coast. I finally arrive in Astoria!

Side story. I used to work at a movie theater in the mid 80s. Right in the prime 80s time of Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Back to the Future and The Goonies. All legends. I saw them all tons of times and Back to the Future you could just go to the Universal Lot and Pasadena to see filming locations but the Goonies! Oooh the Goonies… That seemed like a real place, and it was. Astoria, OR. I always wanted to go there and 41 years later here I am. The next few days is all about The Goonies.

I got to Astoria pretty late in the day so I checked into the motel first. I’m staying in low key simple accomodations because I won’t be spending anytime in the motels except to sleep. I’m always going to grab breakfast on the way out of town anyway. Motel story coming up.

I did a quick tool around town and found some vintage shops. Rescued a little camera from one of them. A Yashica FX-2 which I already have but with the state of cameras it’s good to have a back up copy of one incase you need to raid it for parts. Besides the fact that it was $20 and after a bit of coaxing the winder and exercising the aperture in store I got it back to working order. I think they thought it was really dead so they priced it like that.

Onto the first sight was a house just a block away which was in the film Short Circuit! Another 1986 time period film. Johnny 5! So cool. Then off to the Astoria Jail from Goonies and although it was closed I got my pictures. The Fratelli’s car was parked out front so I parked mine out there too! Across the street was the city hall and then off to the bowling alley I went. In the opening scene of The Goonies Chunk is at the bowling alley… well, just have a look below. That was pretty cool. They had some great merch including Chunk’s shirt but the bowling alley itself was selling old pins for a $1. One dollar?! So yes, I bought one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n