Some more Lewis and Clark, and some kites.

In due course, we got to the mouth of the Columbia River, where Lewis and Clark spent the winer of 1805-6, after having traversed the American continent. This is a bay behind Cape Disappointment, so-called because a Capt Mears of Capt Cook's expedition (after Cook himself was killed in the Hawaiian Islands), looking for the mouth of a large river that might be the entrance to the (Non-existent) Northwest Passage, concluded that there was no river mouth here. (wronnnnng!) Along the trail, a remarkable snail.
Cape Disappointment lighthouse.
When Lewis and Clark came down the Columbia close to the mouth, they found strong and contrary winds, so strong that they couldn't get to the ocean. They were force to camp some miles shy of it, for five days. Lewis called it 'a dismal Nitch'.
They had a lot of trouble staying dry, or warm, or fed. They were clad mostly in animal skins by this time, their clothes being mostly worn out. The Indians made nice warm clothes of cedar bark, which is surprizingly warm and water-resistant.

They lived mostly on a dozen or so salmon which they bought from some passing Indians, plus a few others they caught themselves (this was not the season when they were running). Salmon for food, and Red Cedar for most everything else, were principal mainstays for the Indians.
After some five days at the Dismal Nitch, the weather moderated enough so that they could get around the next point, to where they could finally say they had reached the Pacific. They called this place Station Camp.
The next day, they hiked along the shore to the other side of Cape Disappointment, viewing the open ocean for the first time; this is a little cove they visited.

Near the Cape, Lewis and Clark's men first saw a giant condor, the largest bird in the world (9-1/2 ft wingspan) and unknown until then. . They dragged it back to camp, where Lewis measured and described it exhaustively (before killing it). They brought the head back and presented it to Jefferson.

After considering the exposed nature of Station Camp and doing some exploring on the south side of the river, they concluded to have a general council as to where to spend the winter. They asked everyone's opinion on the matter, including Sacajawea (a woman) and York, Clark's black slave. This was pretty remarkable for the time. Almost everybody agreed they should move over to the south side.

Near the Dismal Nitch, there were a lot of pilings in the water. There had been some for a low bridge that spanned the Columbia, which is wide and stormy but not very deep. They also had extensive quays along the bank, to service ferries. There was also a platform in the middle of the river, where they kept horses. These were used to pull in large nets which they cast for salmon and other fish.
While wintering there, they needed to replenish their salt supply; so they sent a crew of men to the shore to cut wood and boil down sea-water for salt. This took a while. There's a group of Lewis and Clark re-enactors who specifically re-enact this.

Some of the various animal skins they used.
A trrading station. They were always trading with the Indians, although at this poiont they had almost run oout of goods to trade; they cut most of the buttons off their clothes and uniforms to trade.

One Indian mused, later, that they were a bit different from other White men who had come to trade. Since the others had come on ships, they lived on the ships and only came ashore to trade. These White men lived ashore, in a settlement they had made without actually asking the Indians' permission. Also, they didn't seem to have nearly as much stuff to trade.

These traders traded various things to tourists, who could buy 'trade goods' at the entrance. Fun, and probably provided a good insight into one of their important activities.

Wappato roots - something like potatos, and a staple for the Indians. L & C traded for some of it.
Salal berries, anothere thing they traded for from the Indians. These grow all over, and were an important food source, but are almost completely tasteless.
Ft Clatsop. When we saw it, it was not actually raining, but sort of drizzling. Note that the roofs slope inward, so that any rain that falls on them ends up in the central yard. Sgt Gass, who also kept a diary, reported that in the almost four months they stayed there, there were only 12 days without rain! So why didn't they slope the roofs towards the outside?

Ah, the Army. This was an army operation all the way - those who weren't in the army to start with were sworn in for the duration, except for Charbonneau and Sacajawea and York. When George Washington, at Valley Forge during the Revolution, was conversing with Baron von Steuben, the Baron remarked that the soldiers didn't know very much about drilling, and following regulations in general. Washington was supposed to have remarked, in effect, "Baron, you've just gotten your first job." The manual von Steuben wrote was still used in 1805; one of the things it stipulated was that in building a fort, the outside walls were to be the highest. Therefore, the roofs had to slope inwards, rain every day or no. (Lewis carried along his copy of the US Army Articles of War, written 26 years earlier by Von Steuben.)

Re-enactor showing one of the lead powder-canisters Lewis had made up. They contained a portion of powder, and being made of lead could be melted down to make the shot to go with it. This was found to be an excellent idea when one of the boats overturned. All the caisters, instead of floating away, sank to the bottom of the river where they were easily retrieved; and they were completely waterproof.
Demonstrating all the steps there are to cleaning, loading and firing a muzzle-loading musket.
Barb in a replica of one of the dugout canoes they used to go down the river. These turned out to be pretty useless in the wind and waves of the Columbia estuary.
So, they copied the much better designs of the local Indians.

This was fascinating-what books do you take with you if you're going to be gone from civilization for years? Lewis took three books on travel; Textbooks and Botany, Minerology, Astronomy and Taxonomy; an Ephemeris (phases of the moon, tides etc); and the Von Steuben's Articles of War .

A statue showing Lewis and Clark getting information from a local Indian. They always asked most politely, and the Indians were usually retty forthcoming. A good thing.

An interesting-sounding place. Unfortunately, it was closed.

Another thing we saw (actually before the Lewis & Clark stuff) was Long Beach, Washington, where they had a Kite Museum. Note the copies of The Kite Runner:

The Japanese are big on kites. In case you wondered, Japanese Samurai warriors are generally represented as cross-eyed because they believed that this way, a man could see to both sides better, so as not to be taken by surprise. Must have taken some practice.
These are tiny kite; the pen is 6" long...they used pretty fine thread to fly them.
Some Korean fighting kites. They coated the strings with a mixture of glass shards and glue; the object was to saw your string across someone else's string and cut it.

A Chinese bat kite. Since the words for bat and good luck are pronounced the same, obviously bats bring good luck.

A peacock kite.
They had quite a section on kites in World War II. This was a kite you would fly aloft to provide a radio antenna by downed pilots.
Arctic mail kite; the mail canister was suspended from the kite and the mail plane could snatch it up in flight.
Barrage kite, flown by convoy ships to keep attacking aircraft away.

Target kite. This has two control strings, so that it could traverse and swoop much the way an attacking aircraft would do. Much more realistic than a single-string kite.

Turtle Boat, invented by the Korean Admiral Yi. These worked very well, along with Admiral Yi's military genius, in repelling several Japanese invasion attempts. He also had various kites that he flew as maneuvering signals.After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, someone mounted a camera in a kite and flew it above the city to make this composite photo. Since there was a lot of wreckage, it was several days before they could have put together as complete a picture of the total damage as this gave.

In Malaysia, they fish for garfish with kites. Sounds pretty tricky: they get the fish to bite,

Then they jerk the line just right and it ends up in his teeth. Of course, he has to bite just the right place in the bait to start with...

Then, on down the beach. This whale skeleton is close to the spot where a whale beached itself during L & C's stay. They heard about it and sent a party along (Sacajaweah put her foot down here, and said "I've come all this way with you, so I want to see this Ocean thing!" So they let her come along, several miles, papoose on her back and all. When they got there, the Indians had stripped the carcass bare; they did buy 300 lbs of meat and some oil from the Indians.

Then, on to the Kite Festival: Blind chance, we had no idea about it until someone at the campsite mentioned it. The beach itself is beautiful - nice and wide, long, not a whole lot of people once you get away from the concession stands. Then you get to the kites -

Lots of kites. There was a nice steady wind, so once properly launched they would stay up all day.

There were a lot of people there, and most of them had a lot of kites, or earthbound streamers etc:
Including some very large and spectacular ones. The round one never did get off the ground more than momentarily; I think it wasn't supposed to.

This one rotated. It was attached to a line leading to another kite, higher up.


Once you've launched, a lot of people just sat there and watched them...

To launch a string like this, you have to launch one kite, , then attach the next one to the string while in flight, etc. Can take a long time, even with the assistance of spectators..
Ditto to get it down again.
Some of the people were a bit colorful, too
These are stunt kites - each one flown by a different guy, with one of them calling out the orders. The kite at the bottom is the leader, and they all are following him as he dips, dives and circles.

Here, they go in a circle. The lines do get crossed, but these don't have glass on them, so somehow they slide by each other. The do have to keep track of how many times they are would around each other, so they can unwind them.

They can also bring them down to the ground and make them sit up:
Here are the 'drivers'. Each man (they do seem to be mostly men) has a handle with two strings in it, in each hand. The strings are of fixed length. So you move the hands back and forth, and cock the wrists up and down, concentrating . This group was prtty good. I saw another guy doing stunts solo, and he allowed as how although he was good, he wsn't good enough to join the group just yet.
Nothing to do with kites, but cute... reads: Hammerschlager I got hammered at Oktoberfest.