Old Boats

I mentioned a few posts ago that we left Moses Lake a day early. I blamed it on the smoke and the lack of much to do. There was another reason. Mid-day of our first full day there, we stopped back at our hotel room. The Queen Midget needed to make a potty break and it was the best place to stop. She went up to her room by herself. When she opened the door she saw a man on the balcony of our room. And a ladder. I’m not sure what she did next, but he disappeared pretty quickly after she entered the room.

I contacted the front desk and asked what was going on. Her reply was that “they tried to inform us, but weren’t successful.” The guy was there to do some grout work. I have no idea how they tried to inform us, but there were no signs, no notes, nothing to alert people staying there that there was construction going on or that people may show up on your balcony unannounced.

But that’s not all. That night, around midnight, my wife heard somebody knock on our door. And then try to open our door. Whoever it was failed because of the security chain. Needless to say my wife was freaked out a bit.

We told the hotel desk clerk about the midnight incident the next morning and she promised to look into it. The only problem is that her manager wasn’t going to be in for hours and the night clerk had gone home and gone to bed (understandably).

We went to breakfast and talked about what we wanted to do. As we sat there, the air quality continued to drop as smoke from nearby fires made its first appearance on our trip. We decided to flee … from a hotel that felt less than secure, from air quality that was growing worse by the minute, and from a place where we had no idea what we were going to do with ourselves for the next day.

We headed to Astoria, hoping that the bed and breakfast where we had booked a room might have an opening that night as well. No such luck. So, I found a Best Western and booked it for that night. The hotel is located right on the “corner” where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific. Our room looked out at all this watery goodness. Here’s one piece of that view…

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Once we checked in, we wandered around behind the hotel along a walking path. It was there that I found a graveyard for old boats. I typically take pictures of sunsets and big sweeping vistas. One of the things I try to do when I’m out and about is find new ways to take pictures. To expand my repertoire. So, here are some old boats.

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