About Clatsop County, OR

I grew up in Seattle. But when mom and dad planned our summer vacations, most years this meant heading to the Oregon coast. My mom and dad are gone now but I still find myself wanting to head to Oregon. Most years my aunt and uncle from Pennsylvania rent a home somewhere on the coast. This year it's a 4 bedroom home in Manzanita and my husband Rick and were invited to join them.

I'll be posting highlights of my trip in the next few days. Manzanita is a darling little town just south of Cannon Beach.

The first morning here we headed up to Cannon Beach. Cannon Beach is a favorite with many Oregonians and out of staters alike. The shops are first class and the beaches are fabulous. But this post is about catching the low tide at Haystack Rock (pictured at top).

In all the years of visiting the Oregon coast, this was a first for me. I've always enjoyed seeing the tidal flats at Cape Perpetua but I found Cannon Beach to offer as much or more. The rock formations are fabulous and there are just as many starfish and sea anemones here as anywhere.

















If you have the opportunity to be here at the right time, this is one experience you won't want to miss... especially if you have kids

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If you lived in the 80's, the two Coreys really couldn't be avoided. They seemed to be everywhere! But, since this is the Inspired by Movie Song contest, I thought I'd better step it up and bring out a Corey and Steven Spielberg for this contest!

Then to take it up from there, I decided to end my vacation by going to the houses where these next two films were made. I even added a 90's movie set for our younger viewers today.

What movie that you can't forget brought Corey Feldman and Steven Spielberg together in the 80's? Of course it was "The Goonies" and it was filmed right here in Oregon about 15 minutes away from where I was on vacation. Not only is the Goonies a great movie, it taught you about team work and to never give up on your goal! Besides, how can you go wrong with a video that has Captain Lou, Rowdy Roddy Piper and the Sheik from WWF in it? Before the video you will see the house that the Goonies met at before they went on their adventure. We took this picture on Friday afternoon on the way back from our vacation.

The second movie was "Short Circuit" from 1986. It was not a great film, but if you remember Johnny 5, the robot that was alive, and any film in the 1980's that had Steve Guttenberg had to be good right? Don't you remember "Police Academy"?

This picture was the house where Ally Sheedy lived in the film and where Johnny 5 decided to take up as a safe haven to watch and learn from Ally Sheedy's television and books. It is only about 5 miles from "The Goonies" house. The moral of this story is when you believe in something, even when no one else does, you can succeed!

The song was actually a pretty big hit, unlike "The Goonies" theme. But, I never saw the video until today, boy is it bad! But, the house in the picture above is in it briefly.

OK, since I was out taking pictures of movie spots and this one was only two blocks from "The Goonies" house, I decided to take a picture of it for those people who didn't get in to movies until the 90's, but like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I decided to take a picture of the school where Arnold played a teacher for a week to protect a child in the movie "Kindergarten Cop".

So, here is my entry for the Inspired by Movie Song and I really hope someone else steps up and actually heads to the movie location where their movies where filmed and include current pictures like I have.

Good Luck,

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

Yesterday I went over the first of three critical elements if you want to generate a quick sale in today’s Astoria housing market. You see, contrary to the belief of some Sellers today you want your house “sold” not “for sale”. The second ingredient is product. Our local market on the Oregon Coast is very competitive, especially in Clatsop County. We were cruising along at 8-10 months of inventory, but in the last three months residential inventory has nearly doubled. How does that effect somebody with an Astoria home for sale? It means instead of 20 homes directly completing with yours in terms of price and location, you would now have 35. That’s right, a Buyer for your home would have 35 other homes that also meet their search criteria. What now? If you priced your home correctly, you’ll have a slight upper hand on the competition.