The Fort Lives On

I have always dreamed of myself as being a bit of an adventurer.  I have climbed to the top of several mountain peaks through the years, hiked many miles over backwoods trails, simply stomped out through the brush from point A to point B when I worked for the Forest Service and bicycled thousands of miles all over Oregon.  I too have always been intrigued with the great expedition Lewis and Clark made across western America in the early 1800's.  Since I had never visited the far northwest corner of Oregon, where the mighty Columbia River surges into the Pacific Ocean I thought this writers weekend / mini vacation would give Larrieann and I an opportunity to see some of the country that our brave early explorers visited over two hundred and five years ago. 

On a worn piece of elk hide I ogled the rough drawn fort that Clark left instructions for his troops to build while he was away studying and mapping the northern Oregon coast line.  I had to giggle to myself because it resembled the simple drawing I had drawn just before starting the grand kids tree house last spring.  Some statistics you may not know about:  Cost for the Lewis and Clark expedition, $2,500.  Cost for the grand kids tree house, $2,500.  The site where the original fort was built in 1805 was later logged and turned into a potato growing field.  The few rotting logs left from the original fort site were burned by the farmer to make way for a bigger field.  The land where the fort used to sit was farmed for almost fifty years before the Historical Society bought the land from the farmer and reconstructed the old fort using this original map for details.  The reconstructed Fort Clatsop accidentally burned down in 2005 after a candle making demonstration went awry.  The third Fort Clatsop we visited this weekend is surrounded by a massive forest with no indication that a potato growing field had ever been present.

Writers weekend statistics; only 2% of all the books written are ever published.  I did take a third place in the poem writing portion of the conference. 

Traveling north to a writers weekend at Ocean Park.

It was a journey into the land of Lewis and Clark.

Knowing before hand the new scribes would have a religious flavor.

Which was definitely a topic I did not want to savor.

I gleaned that publishing a profitable book was a myth.

Which was a thought I did not want to be left with.

Can you believe I took third place for that whopper.  Wait till you see my sique.