We had heard on the news that Astoria, Oregon was having an unusual amount of sea lions on their docks, in fact over 2,300 of them.  Never having been to Astoria my husband and I decided to go and spend the weekend there and see this unusual event. Upon arriving at our hotel's lobby we noticed a basket full of ear plugs for the guests, I asked "what's the ear plugs for?" the clerk answered "seal plugs". This might cause concern for some folks about a noisy stay, but it made me giggle with excitement to experience our weekend here.
   Our room was located on the top floor, facing Pier 39,and the last room on the end. From our balcony I could see the sea lions lying on the docks, and the sound of them barking was amazing. Yes, some folks  might run to put in their ear plugs in at this point, but I rather enjoyed those dog faced looking Sea Lions just barking away, twenty four hours a day. My husband even commented during the night that somebody had quite the party going on. "Yes, those boys are sure the partyers." I replied.
   Turns out, all the Sea Lions here are all males. Scientists who study these guys  have  branded their backs with numbers so as to keep up with them. They come every year to feed on the smelt and salmon fish, but this year there was a bumper crop of smelt fish so instead of the 300-400 normal amount of sea lions, they got thousands.
   What is really interesting is these sea lions go from this Pier 39 and travel down to San Francisco's Pier 39 to meet up with the females! Once they do their business of meeting up with the females they travel back up the coast bringing back all the little males that are ready to leave their momma's.    
   Astoria sits on a hill spotted with colorful Victorian houses that over looks the Pacific Ocean and the mouth of the 1200 mile long Columbia River. It is the oldest American settlement west of the Rockies. It is a beautiful little town with a rich history, such as Lewis and Clark's winter in 1805, bustling fish canneries, shanghaied sailors, and of course who hasn't seen the movie "The Goonies" filmed here in 1984. Hollywood has been making movies in this area since 1908, movies like: Short Circuit, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, and Free Willy II.
    I learned something from these Sea Lions, they know where the best Piers are to hangout at on the Pacific Northwest, and like them we too will return to Pier 39.

Free ear plugs for the guest.