As I pulled into my hotel along the Columbia River in Astoria I noticed a hum. As I got closer I realized that hum was sea lions barking. It was dark out so I didn't know where they were or how many of them were making that racquet. I did't particularly care because I was beat and knew I'd pass out whether they barked or not.
The next morning when I woke up they were still going at it, barking like a gaggle of geese. I decided that if I was going to do one thing it was going to be figure out where the heck that racquet was coming from. I checked and looked outside to realize that there was a river-walk along the backside of my hotel. Perfect. I ate a little breakfast, checked out and headed back to walk along the Columbia river. First thing I saw was this pile of rocks with a pile of sea lions.
After taking a look at the hundreds of sea lions, watching them swim in the water, I decided to walk toward the Bridge I had traversed the night before. I made my way toward the cool bridge. It's hard to see in the pic but it's really high in one spot. Feels like you are rising up like you do when you lift off the tarmac on a plane. If you don't like heights it would probably freak you out a bit.
As I walked down another dock or two and I still heard the sea lions. I figured it was just an echo or something from the rock pile. Turns out I was wrong. There were even MORE of them.
They were piled up on these floating docs. PILED. As in you couldn't see the docks that they were beached on. Laying on top of each other. I think it was to conserve body heat because you could see the steam from them rising up into the air.
There were signs on the docks saying beware of sea lions. Too funny. They were barking, fighting, sleeping, trying to get off, trying to get on, staring at me, etc. I probably stood there a good 15 minutes just walking up and down the dock and then standing there looking at them.
There was this one that was sitting on the very end of the floating dock closest to the dock I was standing on. He was one of the few that was sitting up, chest sticking out, head back. I thought it was a sign of dominance. He knew I was watching him and in my mind it looked like he was eyeballing me. It made me chuckle. I kept thinking, "Are you going to try and get up the dock ramp and come get me or what?" "Whatcha you lookin' at Willis?" "sup dude?" "You got a problem?" "You feelin' lucky punk?"
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