June 1, 2015. Cape Disappointment State Park.

 

June 1, 2015.  The Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center and Cape Disappointment Lighthouse.  Still unable to get an Internet signal at our campsite, we drove to the park ranger’s station this morning.  Just two miles from the campsite, we found the Internet.  I uploaded yesterday’s entry to the blog and we parked T-Harvey.  The Interpretative Center was .6 of a mile uphill on a road with a sign that said, “No RVs.”

The Center is constructed above Fort Canby, a pre-Civil War fort at the mouth of the Columbia River constructed in 1852.  There, canons protected the US from invasion – by whom, I am not sure.  So far as I know, no one has tried to invade the US by way of the Columbia River.  Maybe that proves the usefulness of the fort.  The fort is a small structure constructed into the side of the bluff overlooking the river flowing into the Pacific.  It appears, from the number of bunks, that about two dozen soldiers would have been assigned there any at one time.

A path through the woods takes visitors another .6 of a mile, mostly up, from the Center to the Cape Disappointment Light House.  The lighthouse was commissioned in 1856.  There was a bit of a haze today, so visibility was limited.  I suspect that on a clear day, the Lewis and Clark River can been seen, about two miles up the Columbia River.  It was on the Lewis and Clark River that Fort Clatsop was constructed.

It was about a mile and a half back from the lighthouse to T-Harvey, interestingly, again mostly uphill.  Or, maybe it just seemed that way.  When you start and end at the same place, the ups have to be exactly offset by the downs.  It sure seemed like there were more ups than downs.  You understand that, don’t you?  Annie was proud that she got her 10,000 steps in today.  I was proud to be her escort.