Hey You Guys... Another Oregon Coast Post

On our recent trip to Cannon Beach, OR we made sure to stop off in Astoria. As you've seen a few posts ago Astoria is a pretty costal town rich in history. The Lewis and Clark expedition spent a winter there, Washington Irving wrote a story about the town, in 1847 the city welcomed the first U.S. Post Office west of the Rocky Mountains (thanks wiki), and oh yeah The Goonies was filmed there.

Like most children of the '80s I have a soft spot in my heart for The Goonies. I have easily seen this movie over 50 times (although when I told this to my older brother Adam he swears the number is closer to 100... he may be right). A couple days before we left for the coast I was talking about how excited I was to see the sites from the movie when Mandy confessed that she had never really seen the entire movie before. This shouldn't be a surprise but it was, in fact here is a quick list of extremely popular movies that made me who I am (not really) that Mandy has not seen:

Back to the Future trilogy (I made her watch the first one last summer)

The Karate Kid trilogy

Rocky I-IV (who cares about V)

Indiana Jones trilogy

Gremlins I or II

To be fair, Mandy didn't grow up with any brothers and she thinks it's crazy that I have never seen The Sound of Music (in its entirety) or Grease.

Anyway, we watched the film before we left and I can report that Mandy thoroughly enjoyed it. While watching we took mental notes of what we (I) wanted to see. Mandy went online and was able to find addresses and filming locations. While most of the movie is filmed in the Astoria area there are crucial scenes filmed in Cannon Beach as well as in So. California. When we pulled into town we met a local who told us everywhere we needed to go, he even gave us a city map that had the locations printed on it (see we are not the only ones who come looking for this stuff).

The movie begins with the Fertelli's busting Jake out of jail. The area looks pretty much the same although the jail is no longer in use.

Same jail, different color.

As the Fratelli's race from the cops through the streets of Astoria they somehow make it to a truck rally on Cannon Beach some 30 min away.

This was right outside the beach house. Wish I would have seen a rally but somehow I don't see that ever happening again due to fact that now the rock and the area surrounding it is a protected Marine Garden and Bird Sanctuary.

The museum where Mikey and Brand's dad (that's him raising the flag) works is actually the George Flavel House and right across the street from the jail.

Here I am on the porch.

The Walsh's home looked virtually the same except for the notable absence of the gate opening contraption. I was happy to see that the Astoria Country Club wasn't allowed to tear it down and build a golf course. This was perhaps the most surreal stop on our tour because that house and its landscape is pretty iconic to me.

I thought this picture was more appropriate to post than the one of me doing the "Truffle Shuffle".

Next door is Data's house. 1985.

Richard "Data" Wang's house 2010.

The people who now live in the Walsh's home are pretty cool about the fact that nerds from all over want to come and see their house. Aside from having their address listed on the cities tourist map, they also have this sign posted in front of their long driveway.

Mikey, Mouth, Data and Chunk are on the hunt for One Eyed Willie's treasure in Astoria but really they are searching in Ecola State Park. Which I hear is beautiful on a clear day but when we were there it was very wet and foggy so we couldn't see it all. Oh well, a reason to go back!

If you are wondering why all the previous pictures are only of me it's because at every location when I would ask if Mandy wanted to take a picture she would say "no, this is your thing." She was so nice to spend a day of her vacation geeking out with me. So here we are at Ecola State Park, cold, wet and having a blast.