Astoria
Today we have completed our journey to the sea. Like Lewis and Clark, we can say, “Ocean in view, Oh, the joy!” The Sea Bird has carried us to the bar of the Columbia River. We have seen the site of Fort Clatsop, where they over-wintered. And it is here that we experience a moment of contemplation about the passage of time.
It is almost two hundred years since the Corps of Discovery made their epic trip. A lot can happen in that length of time. Trees that were but saplings then are mature giants now. Land that was wilderness then has been cultivated, built upon, or paved in places. The Great River of the West, free-flowing and filled with rapids and cascades, has now become a series of lakes because we have built dams. Railroad tracks and highways make travel and commerce much easier, and we need not take the risks of travel that they experienced. It is a mixed bag. Some things are better. Some are not. Still we marvel that the land is so resilient, and that sunrises and full moons are so beautiful.
Underneath the forest canopy and hardly noticed, a mushroom springs to life, matures, and begins its disintegration, all in just a couple of days. Does its brief moment in time make it less attractive or important in the scheme of things? Will we have a bicentennial commemoration for this mushroom? I think not; and yet somehow the memory of its charm will live in the minds of those of us who saw it.
Today we have completed our journey to the sea. Like Lewis and Clark, we can say, “Ocean in view, Oh, the joy!” The Sea Bird has carried us to the bar of the Columbia River. We have seen the site of Fort Clatsop, where they over-wintered. And it is here that we experience a moment of contemplation about the passage of time.
It is almost two hundred years since the Corps of Discovery made their epic trip. A lot can happen in that length of time. Trees that were but saplings then are mature giants now. Land that was wilderness then has been cultivated, built upon, or paved in places. The Great River of the West, free-flowing and filled with rapids and cascades, has now become a series of lakes because we have built dams. Railroad tracks and highways make travel and commerce much easier, and we need not take the risks of travel that they experienced. It is a mixed bag. Some things are better. Some are not. Still we marvel that the land is so resilient, and that sunrises and full moons are so beautiful.
Underneath the forest canopy and hardly noticed, a mushroom springs to life, matures, and begins its disintegration, all in just a couple of days. Does its brief moment in time make it less attractive or important in the scheme of things? Will we have a bicentennial commemoration for this mushroom? I think not; and yet somehow the memory of its charm will live in the minds of those of us who saw it.
