We awoke in Astoria and headed to breakfast at the motel. There was an Australian bloke there who was being humorous in an ambiguous way about how we were hogging the toaster. We had only entered the breakfast room moments earlier, but he was now in a queue behind all four of us and wasn't happy. I was toasting a bagel and he insisted that the highest setting would accomplish the job more quickly. I told him that the maximum settings would likely burn the bagel. He reached out and changed the settings. I reached out and changed them back, telling him that I was able to handle the toaster technology. He said: 'don't trust me, eh?' I replied thoughtfully and deliberately: 'No, I don't'.
Being huge film fans, during this trip we have frequently written about movies that we love and have made both overt and obscure references to them in our blog posts. We've even taken pictures of locations where our favourite movies were shot. Over the years, the picturesque city of Astoria has played host to Hollywood many times: Overboard, Short Circuit, The Black Stallion, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, The Ring and Into the Wild have all been lensed in the vicinity.
However, there is one movie that featured prominently in our respective childhoods that was made largely in Astoria. I am, of course, talking about The Goonies. Directed by Richard Donner and executive produced by Steven Spielberg (during his prolific run during the 80s), The Goonies told the tale of a bunch of Goondock kids set to lose their homes to a real estate development. The Goonies follow a map in search of a treasure that might save their homes and families.
As we were wandering around town, it was not difficult to spot the primary locations from the movie. We located Mikey's Dad's museum almost by accident. Opposite the Flavel House Museum stands the County Jail from which one of the movie's villains, Jake Fratelli, escapes at the beginning of the movie. We found the junction at which Rosalita is disturbed by the Fratelli chase (this is also the Stop N' Snack where the Goonies later go shopping). We were also blown away by Haystack Rock at the beautiful Cannon Beach. These rocks determine the location from which the journey begins for the main characters and the memorable closing scenes.
The highlight, though, was probably finding the Goonie house as inhabited by the Walsh family in the movie. The house is on a private drive and so we had pretty much decided not to intrude when we saw this sign at the foot of the drive:
Thanks to the owners for being cool enough to give movie fans a Goonie adventure of their own. Mikey's house is situated opposite Data's house in the movie and this is the case in reality too. The window from which Data glides on a cord accompanied by the James Bond theme is still adjacent to Mikey's window today. None of us were willing to carry out the Truffle Shuffle on camera, but as Dale happened to be wearing his signature hat, we couldn't resist quoting at least a few lines:
Astoria was really fun and is such a quaint, memorable place. We enjoyed some locally brewed beer at the Wet Dog Café before heading out towards Seattle. The scenery is stunning on the 101. So far, the Pacific Northwest is just breathtaking. At one point, I had to stop for a family of ducks to cross.
After a couple of hours, we hit some heavy traffic. Apparently, the Seattle Mariners are playing at home this evening and Tim McGraw is also performing in town. We figured that sitting in traffic for hours was a waste of time, so we have stopped overnight in Tacoma. The good news is that we've officially entered Washington, the Evergreen state. Washington is the final state on the Crossing the States road trip. We'll head in to Seattle on Saturday morning and spend the weekend there before we fly to London on Monday. It's nearly all over, we can't believe it!
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