Sealions

Travis and I lived in Astoria for a summer way back in 2000. He was working for the state riding along with the commercial fisherman and torturing sea lions. It was undeniably the most fun Travis has ever had at work. It was a bit of adventure, a chance to interact with the kind of people who made the summers of his adolescents so grand and he was actually doing a little science. But the part about torturing the sea lions. It was his job to set the sea lions traps and then go out there and brand them so they could track their migration up the Columbia river and monitor their salmon intake. It was all for the good of the salmon blah blah blah. Sea lions are huge and stinky and cram a bunch of them in a trap on a platform in the middle of the river and they become very mean. They would bite each other but they couldn't get to their captures due to the construction of the trap. Ohh but those sea lions had their revenge. We lived in this cute house on the hill overlooking the city of Astoria and the Columbia river. One night we watch the northern lights from the front porch. But every morning without fail we would be awoken by the barking of the sea lions. It really is a horrible sound.

We went out to the beach a couple weeks ago with the intention to boogie board but once we got to the beach it was windy and cold and it just didn't seem so fun anymore. Well we stopped in
Astoria on the way home and Travis likes to go down to the docks where he used to work and they have been taken over by the sea lions.

Carina was fascinated by them and really didn't want to leave and has been talking about them and impersonating them ever since.

So it has come full circle and the sea lions have got the last laugh, except her incessant barking is rather adorable