Our taxi picked us up at 8am and we had breakfast in the hotel before the two hour drive back to Portland Airport. He was a very nice and reasonably priced taxi driver, I do recommend the Regal Taxi people.
He told us lots of history about the area and was quicker and cheaper than expected! We got checked in at Portland Aiport quite quickly despite none of the machines wanting to acknowledge us and then we passed through security effortlessly. I was a source of great amusement when going through the scanner as I had top notch sunburn and no one could believe it was from one afternoon on Cannon Beach!
We had a Wendy’s burger for lunch and it was as big as my head. Despite getting food on the plane this helped fill a gap. We we never really that hungry the whole time we were away, I think because of the jet lag and time differences. Didn’t stop us eating though!
We were sat on the plane opposite 36 Crazyfists who were on their way to play Download. One of them was a very rude young man who has no manners. The rest were very polite! I only recognised them as one of them had one of their stickers on his laptop bag!
We eventually got home and I spent the night at Vic’s house, sleeping. I got the train back home the following day after a big sleep. It was the best trip I have ever been on and I couldn’t have asked for better company to share it all with.
Monday morning was spent enjoying our last lie in and full day in Astoria.We got several busses to the last organised event which was a picnic in Ecola State Park which is where the scenes around the restaurant were filmed. We got the bus driver to stop half way up so we could take some pictures! The first bus driver we had was a right misery and stopped to have his dinner half way there!
We got there in time to claim our free hot dogs or burgers. I had one of each, cos I could. The food table was staffed by pensioners and the man who served me said I could have anything I wanted seeing as I asked so nicely!
We took loads of photos with my replica doubloon that I had remembered to bring with me. I ended up letting loads of people borrow it so they could take photos with it too!
We then ended up sitting with all the people we had made friends with including Vanessa and Ryan who we had met at other events! There were some guys who had recreated the jeep that the Fratellis drove in the film. This had been at various events over the weekend and we got to have a sit in it and have our photos taken!
Then it was all over, well not quite. After the picnic that was the end of all the organised events. Our small group of Goonies decided we would go down to the beach where Haystack Rock was. This was at Cannon Beach which was a short drive up the coast. We all piled into each others cars and drove there. The weather started to change from a dull grey morning to a bright, hot sunny afternoon.
When we got to the beach we had to take all our jackets and jumpers off because it was so warm. As soon as we started walking on the sand we took our shoes and socks off to introduce everyone to the British passtime that is ‘paddling’! Haystack rock is huge and was hard to get in one camera shot. This is probably my favourite photo I took all weekend:
We then spent the rest of the afternoon paddling, chatting and learning about the sea and rock! This was probably my favourite point from the whole trip and one of the best moments in my life. I can’t honestly think of a time where I have been in a happier place.
When it started to get a bit cooler we decided to go and try the other Goonie beer that was available at a pub in Gearhart. So we eventually found the microbrewery pub place and settled in for beer and food.
I think the beer we had here was just called ‘Chunk’ and was pretty much like a normal lager. This was another micro brew pub and we had a sampler platter here between us and it was really nice. We ended up with jugs of the Terminator stout which warmed us up along with the fire they lit as the sun went down. We got a lift back to the hotel with Jesse, Nikki and Jeremy and when we got to the hotel we discovered they were on the front page of the paper!
We then went back to our room to pack and have an early night before our taxi collected us early the next morning. I had a good cry, just cos I was happy and because I had the most amazing time I could have hoped for. Everything was better than I had expected, the people of Astoria were amazing and it was just perfect. I fell asleep on the netbook and Vic had to wake me up and make me go to bed. I had a little bit of sunburn from our time by the rock and was a bit on the sleepy side. This was the perfect end to our trip and I think at this point we were Goonied out and wanted to be home.
We got up quite hungover and ventured downstairs for breakfast. I had biscuits and sausage gravy – this was a whole new breakfast experience. Although it was nice, it was better with red sauce. Then I had a bowl of Fruit Loops cos there is nothing better cereal wise that a bowl of FRESH Fruit Loops!
We went into town and had a look round the Sunday Market in the drizzle. Vic got a bag of cheesy popcorn and I covered myself in candy floss. The phrase Candy Floss Sex Face was coined around here somewhere.
It was then time for our bus tour, which I was really looking forward to. We decided to sit either side of the bus so we could maximise our photo taking potential. We ended up sat with Sloth, Chunk and Cyndi aka Jesse, Jeremy and Nikki who we had sat with at the VIP dinner.
The school bus took us to the Goonies House which we got to look round, this was amazing. I never thought in a million years I would be able to go into the house I had watched hundreds of times on the TV. My mamma would have loved to seen the pictures, she had to endure me watching the film so many times when I was little! The owner was lovely and told us where each bit was in the film as she had decorated considerably since moving in!
The bus then took us past the school from Kindergarten Cop, another favouite film of mine! We then had a stop at the field you see the cheerleaders practising on at the start of the film.
We then passed the jail and the Flavel House again before heading up to Mouth’s House. We got to go in here and the owner was lovely again and gave us a little talk about the house before we went in. He also had a loop of the scene from the film playing in his living room so we could ‘make the connection’. We got to sign a guest book too that he is keeping with the house so should he ever sell it, it’s history will be preserved – how cool is that!
We then drove back into Astoria down some very tricky streets and saw the Short Circuit house in the distance. A film that I still haven’t seen, shh don’t tell Leanne!
Having resisted the urge all day we finally asked for our photo taken with the Goonies! I guessed this was probably the last time they would be in fancy dress, so finally grabbed the opportunity!
Then we got to go to another Meet and Greet, this was because some of the cast couldn’t make it to the VIP dinner, so the people with tickets to that got to go again! This was amazing as Richard Donner and Sean Astin had made it down to this one and we hadn’t met them on the previous day. This was a little better organised and we didn’t quite have to wait four hours to meet them!
We then got autographs from them all again and we were sure Sean Astin talked in a Yorkshire hobbit type voice when he spoke to us! Vic thanked Richard Donner for the 80s.
We then went for some tea with Andrew and had a pretty surreal restaurant experience in the Silver Salmon. There were crayons on the table when we sat down and we were told it was ok to draw on the paper tablecloth. This was fun and Andrew managed to offend the waitress here while showing how not to call staff over in a restaurant. I had some salmon covered in crab with garlic mash and salty vegetables, after a random salad that you get before your main course.
The only reason we went in there though was for this…
BABY RUTH CHEESECAKE. This was ten kinds of awesome, it was really, really sickly though. One piece was enough for a lifetime.
It was now Sunday evening and we were due to see a concert that had Corey Feldman’s band as the headline act. We bumped into one of the ladies from the Liberty Theatre having dinner in the restaurant and she drew us a map of how to get there as it was quite a way out of town. She said a couple of times, don’t take the road to Warrenton. Andrew kept repeating her but saying ‘so I take the road to Warrenton’, she was getting so frustrated and me and Vic were crying laughing. When we got in the car and set off when it came to not take the road to Warrenton, Andrew started taking the turnoff and we all had to shout ‘DON’T TAKE THE ROAD TO WARRENTON’. It was funny if you were there!
The concert was held in the Clatsop County Fairground and it was a pretty odd place. It looked like Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ video.
I started the evening with a root beer float which was lovely and convert me to a root beer fan. There were a couple of bands on early that were ok, we had mainly gone to see the Ataris and Feldman’s band Truth Movement. The Ataris were great and finally came the time to watch Truth Movement. There are loads of videos on youtube of this historic event in music. First they announce they are going to play their new album ‘Technology Anology‘ in it’s entirety. Yay.
The band come out playing the intro to the first song and Corey comes out in a big black cape. During the rest of this hilarious piece of comedy he was wearing a multicoloured suit, carried out by band members, surrounded by girls in bikinis and a girl in a cardboard robot suit. We met with the Goonies again, minus the fancy dress, so it was Jeremy, Jesse and Nikki this time! It was the most unintentionally humerous gig I have ever been to, there were points where I couldn’t stop laughing. OK! (in joke) When parts of the roof started falling down on our heads just made the evening even more surreal.
We finished the evening by waiting around for the band to come out and sign autographs after this:
I bought me and Vic a copy of the album as a surprise when I went for a drink earlier in the evening. We even managed to get them signed and keep straight faces!
So we woke up with little hangovers on Saturday morning and decided the best way to suffer would be with pancakes and coffee. We eventually got up and washed and headed to the Pig N Pancake for something yummy. We ended up with three plates of pancakes between us and the waitress kept refilling our coffee like you see on TV.
The weather was lovely and we decided to walk off our mountain of food. We walked back into town and had another ride on the trolley as it was free with our weekend pass. We even had a sing song!
We then went to visit the Flavel House Museum which was the local museum where Mikey’s dad worked in the film. It was a big old house that had been saved by the local community when they had tried to turn it into a car park. It was ok, but coming from somewhere that has history everywhere – it was a bit normal. Vic compared it to her Grandma’s house.
It was then time to go to our Meet and Greet at the Liberty Theatre (where the VIP dinner and film showing had been). When we got there the queue was massive and we had to wait for quite a while but we got in and saw a Q&A with Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman and Curt Hanson. We then had to wait in a queue for about 4 hours to get photos and autographs with them. It was worth the wait and we made new friends in the queue – Danielle and Debbie!
Plus we got to meet Corey Feldman!
We then went back to the hotel as it was 80’s night and we had to put on 10 layers of slap! We got a lift back to the hotel with some lovely people we met in the queue, everyone was so nice!
We ended upjust going straight to the Wet Dog and having crisps and strawberry microbrewed beer for tea. We met Andrew, Danielle and Debbie, which was good as we had met some mental drunk women who just wanted to sleep with whatever cast member they could find. Then we met a couple of other Brits who were a little scary and very drunk. I found one of their business cards in my pocket the next day *shudder* We did lots of dancing, as you can see we didn’t even need to stand up to do it!
80s night was fun, lots of drinking and some great music, probably the only time I have heard Falco’s ‘Rock me Amadeus’ in a public place! My favourite bit of the night was when ‘Maniac’ from Flashdance came on and there was a guy outside in his pants doing the best dance ever. Oh and someone’s fancy dress costume was the dead guy from the freezer!
I can’t actually remember how we got back to the hotel. I think we may have got a lift with someone, or we might have walked. This picture pretty much sums up the state of us when we got in.
I remember buying sweets from the sweetie machine downstairs in the hotel when we got back. I finally got to try Cracker Jack and all I remember saying was the bit from the film UHF where Stanley finds a free toy in his cereal. ‘FREE TOY INSIDE FREE TOY INSIDE’.
Although my free toy was a little piece of card that you folded to make a face. Vic proclaimed this the shittest toy ever and I found it the next morning on her bedside table ripped into a tiny pile of little pieces.
We set off walking into Astoria quite early because despite being mega tired we both woke up at 6am. A hearty breakfast of sausages, waffles and syrup was consumed and we were off! It was then we realised the houses we could see from our hotel window were in fact Mikey’s and Data’s houses in the Goonies!
Looky, Mikey's and Data's houses!
We walked along the river till we got to the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
This bridge is 5 miles long apparently.
It was only early and the Goon Docks wasn’t open till 11am so we decided to do it first. It was Vic’s one thing she wanted to do that wasn’t Goonies related. We watched a video before we looked round the exhibits that told us all about ‘the Columbia River’s abundance of beaver’. Well that set the tone for the rest of the visit.
Various phrases used instead of 'Ralph'
Sinkers every time!
There was lots of buttons to press and things to mess with. This bit of a boat you see in the next picture actually had the museum built around it!
Oooh looksee...
Oh and a lot of it was about Salmon as Astoria was one of the main Salmon canneries on the West Coast. Everything that was caught in Alaska was canned in Astoria.
All the tins are the same with different labels!
When we eventually finished in the gift shop we were told our tickets would also get us on the nearby lightship. We wandered over and as we boarded the guide asked us if we had ever been on a lightship before. Vic replied in the positive and sorta killed his next bit. :o) Anyways it was a boat that is used where a lighthouse can’t be built. Not something I had heard of before, so interesting to see.
Not her first, but third!
We then made our way to the Goon Docks to pick up our tickets and stuff. The building itself looked great. All decorated for the event and ready for an onslaught of Goonies!
We picked up our tickets and bought a shed load of Goonies merchandise. We then had a walk round Astoria and went for some lunch before heading back to the hotel to get changed for the VIP meet and greet!
We managed to get back to the hotel in time after travelling on the world’s slowest trolley car and got changed before heading back to town. We met a nice man in the reception of the hotel who offered to share his taxi and then wouldn’t let us pay! He started telling us he had a love for all things British and we got the hell outta that cab as soon as we got to town!
The VIP Dinner was awesome, well the company was – the food was ok. I think it was at this point I realised how salty American food really is. I did have a glass of the Truffle Shuffle stout which was really stong stuff. There were a couple introductions from the Mayor and Jeff Cohen said a few words, the videos explain themseles:
It was at this point that I got to meet my childhood hero, ‘Chunk’ aka Jeff Cohen. They asked the VIPs to cut the giant Baby Ruth cake and I caught him on the way across the room. He remembered sending me the email before my wedding and asked if I was still happily married! The VIPs (Joey Pants, Jeff, Mr Perkins) cut the cake and Jeff came back to let me have my photo taken with him!
This was brilliant and even Joey Pants took our photo, which was very cool. We then finished our dinner and headed downstairs for the red carpet showing of the film!
The showing of the film was preceded by an announcement by the cast members on behalf of Warner Bros. It was announced that there would be a special 25th Anniversary edition of the film released in November.
They then showed the film and we decided to leave about half way through as we were a bit jetlagged and needed to chill out. We went for a walk around Astoria and managed to find the Jail (Film Museum), Mikey’s Dad’s Museum (Flavel House) and Chunk’s Bowling Alley, which is still a bowling alley!
We ended up in a bar having a few beers with some fellow Goonies till quite very late. We met Andrew who was a blogger/writer and he only managed to offend the barmaid about 10 times. I think it was when he said she had ‘nice tats and tits’ – bar staff are good at listening over loud music so this was funny when she turned round and said thanks! It was a little bit scary after Andrew left the bar, as Vic put it ‘it was like that bit in From Dusk Till Dawn when the vampires come out’. We realised we were surrounded by drunk American men asking us if they could listen to our accents. We left at this point and as soon as we started walking up the street we saw a man in the middle of the road mooning a bus full of people. At that point we saw a police car come round from behind the bus and catch him. Not sure if I enjoyed seeing his ball bag blowing in the wind but seeing him get busted was hilarious.
The walk home was quite long and the bit past the strip club was a little scary but we got there eventually! We got to bed and slept till about, ooh 5am when our bodies told us it was morning!
Thursday night I set off for Newcastle on the train and finally got to Newcastle just before 9pm. Vic and Ewan were waiting at the station for me and we dropped my bags off before heading off for some KFC.
After we managed to scoff down a pile of chicken and gravy we had about three hours sleep before we set off to the airport. I don’t know why they tell you to turn up three hours before because the baggage thing didn’t open till 4am. We checked in and passed through security without major issues, which was good. Although they had to check my bag as Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ must have looked funny in the scanner. We sat about in the airport and I was rather amused by all the people drinking bottles of wine and jugs of beer at 5am.
The flight from Newcastle to Amsterdam was quick and over by the time we had chance to eat our pear and raisin buns. I avoided the egg and cheese sandwich just because. Egg and cheese at 7am wasn’t my idea of breakfast. We landed and made our way to the next gate with ease. We then had a mini interview with a lady who had the biggest teeth I had ever seen. Security was fine again, and we waited for our plane. The flight was about an hour late taking off but apart from that it was fine.
I watched ‘The Hangover’ again followed by ‘The Boat That Rocked’ or as it’s known in America ‘Pirate Radio’. Tea was consumed: chicken, potato and spinach in a tomato sauce followed by some indistinguishable biscuit thing. The rest of the journey went by in a blur of Vampire Weekend and intermittent sleep.
We landed in Portland about an hour later than scheduled and made our way through customs. We had decided when they asked us the purpose of our visit we would say ‘film festival’ as it sounded less mental than ‘Goonies 25th Anniversary Celebrations’. Customs dude then asked me what film…er The Goonies. He didn’t seem that surprised and I think he had a good old chuckle as we both left.
We picked up our bags and headed for the Max metro thing to make our way to the bus station. We had to change halfway as they were raising the bridge to let the boats in for the Rose Festival. This was quite a spectacular sight.
Rose Festival Fleet
Finally got to the bus station and hung around for a few hours eating sandwiches and ice creams till it was time to get our bus. While waiting for the bus I noticed someone wearing a ‘Sloth’ t-shirt. I eventually asked her if she was heading to Astoria too and I was glad that she said yes! The bus came and got us out of the rain and we then had a pleasant drive through the green countryside and pouring rain to Astoria. Our bus driver was lovely and got very excited when she heard we were from near Manchester, England – not Manchester, New Hampshire!
Wet and Green Oregon
Lovely bus driver lady told us to wait on the bus when we got to Astoria and ended up dropping us at our hotel as it was raining and she didn’t want us going all that way in the rain. This was the first of many amazingly nice people we met. Checked into the hotel and had a good wash and a massive sleep. The room was massive and had everything we needed, including the sound of sea lions!
Emma Warley 