Laura and I just got home from vacation. We met up with our friends Jason and Matt from Chicago in San Francisco for a road trip up the Northern California and Oregon Coasts before turning inland to Portland.

Astoria is the oldest U.S. town in Oregon. We stopped there mainly to visit the Oregon Film Museum, which celebrates films shot in Oregon and is heavy on the 80s hit, Goonies. In the opening scene of that movie, characters escape from this prison building.

I love seeing historic buildings repurposed for public use. The museum is small but interesting. What made it a blast is the mini film studio set up for folks to film their own scenes. For the price of admission, visitors can film up to five short scenes with various backdrops — from The Shining to a car chase to a kitchen table in the corner of a dilapidated room that has a creepy vibe — that are later emailed to you.

There are scripts available or you can ad lib. The latter is how we rolled, as you might guess from Matt and Laura’s car scene above. They improvised characters who’ve escaped from a Renaissance Fair and are being chased by police.

After fun at the museum, we headed to Godfather’s Books & Espresso Bar.

A few internal photos:

Laura’s haul:

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (HarperTorch, 1974)
• Unplug and Play: 50 Original Group Games That Don’t Need Charging by Brad Berger (Familius, 2016)
• William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back by Ian Doescher (Quirk Books, 2014)

Chris’s haul:

• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder (Tim Duggan Books, 2017)
• The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato (Penguin Classics, first published 1948)
• The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (Penguin Classics, first published 1903)

According to the store’s Facebook page owner Charlie Holboke started selling books and espresso in the town of Seaside in 1978. He opened Godfather’s Books and Espresso Bar in 1993. It’s worth a visit if you’re in the area or a stop if you’re driving through.

Coming up next: our book adventures in Portland.