Astoria Seafood and Wine Festival

Yesterday we trekked up to Astoria for the Seafood and Wine Festival. Although I could not partake in the wine tasting and I'm not a big seafood lover, it was still a lot of fun! There were so many local wine vendors there. I knew that this was a wine-tasting fest but I was expecting a lukewarm turnout. Instead, I found that majority of the vendors were wineries. DH tasted many varietals and I got to smell them. There is a winery just down the street from our house, probably less than 10 miles away, and they had a booth so we stopped and talked to them. They had a dessert wine that they said was an "ice wine". We didn't know what that meant, so DH joked that it was fermented ice? And they joked back that no, it meant "frozen grapes". Turns out that grapes are frozen in the process of making the wine, but I wasn't paying attention so I missed the rest of the process. DH said he preferred other wines over the ice wine. All I know is that it didn't smell like much.

This particular festival has been an annual event for decades, and we met a lot of people who had traveled long distances to get there, or who said they had been coming every year for decades as well.

We ate clam chowder, oysters, and crab legs. DH found that pounding crab legs between 2 blocks of wood is the most efficient way to get the meat out. We also found out that you're not allowed to dig for oysters anymore. Not sure why. But apparently that is reserved for oyster-digging companies and no kind of fishing permit or anything will allow the average citizen to dig for oysters. Hm.

This was our 4th visit to Astoria since we moved here and we still have not gone to see Mikey and Brand's house. I was glad to see that I have not missed the 25th anniversary Goonie event that is going to happen in Astoria June 4-7. I have to look into that today. They are having a VIP dinner and movie with the cast members to kick it off. I'll have to request a seat between Sean Astin and Corey Feldman... Also part of the event is the grand opening of a new Oregon film museum. I read later in the Auto Club magazine that the museum is going to be in the old Goonie jail! The Astoria Historical Society got the idea from all the fans that showed up to take pictures, which means that I, in my own way, helped! Remember this?


The weather yesterday was beautiful and sunny, which is unusual even for May. It was the one sunny day in a long time - day before was gray and cold and today is gray cold and pouring rain. It was very nice to tour around Oregon and Washington and see the sunshine. All the farm animals seemed so happy. We even saw cows wagging their tails.