goonies never say die!

as a child of the 80s, i grew up during what will likely be looked back upon by historians as the greatest decade in cinema of all time. one such example of superior movie making is the goonies. so, when we found ourselves at a campground near the locations where the goonies was filmed, i knew we would have to go on some field trips to check them out. i also prepped the kids for said adventures by watching the goonies every night for the week preceding our excursions.

first up. on our way back from the tillamook creamery tour, we stopped in cannon beach, to check out haystack rock.

the opening scene of the fratelli family leading the police on a wild chase passes by this iconic rock. there’s another scene later in the movie, where the goonies see the rocks off in the distance, also.

the kids recognized it and thought it was pretty cool to be in the actual location of the scene from the movie. hazel was a little confused though, noting that there were a lot more people at the beach on this day than there were in the movie. i feel her pain.

we walked out to the rock, because it was low tide and we could.

there’s a lot of tide pools, but they were fenced off from humans, which was disappointing for anna. but hazel didn’t mind. stomping in puddles is more her pace.

we did spot this HUGE crab, from behind the fence line.

it started to get drizzly, but we still hung out in the soft sand for a bit, with lidkids frolicking about. but when a creepy foreign tourist started snapping pics of them, we decided we were ready to go, and headed for the car.

on day two of our goonies weekend extravaganza, we headed north, into astoria, oregon.

we went straight to the oregon film museum, which is across the street from the flavel house museum, where mr. walsh worked and is why there’s a bunch of old historical stuff in mikey’s attic.

the oregon film museum is housed in the old clatsop county jail and is also the setting of the opening scene when the fratelli’s are breaking one of the brothers out of jail (setting off the cannon beach chase). the kids thought it was pretty cool. ok, so did i.

outside the museum, is a replica of the jeep that the fratelli’s drove, complete with bulletholes in the back.

inside the museum, there was lots of film memorabilia from goonies and other movies shot in the area (kindergarten cop, the shining, to name a couple). i’ll spare you all of the pics of goonies props, but here’s on of the david statues that was used.

and old pirate treasure finding stuff…

there were some really cool mini film studios set up where you could record yourself reading from a film script and send it to your email. i managed to talk anna and hazel into the goonies one, but our acting skills were terrible.

once the (very small, very cramped) place started filling up with people, we made our way to the other side of the museum, where we took some clatsop county jail mug shots. anna was the only lidkid who would participate.

my best grumpy mug shot face.

criminal derek.

next stop. the goondocks, which was mostly just a hallway with cutout cartoons of the goonies.

we took pics with some of our faves. obviously sloth.

thankfully, derek insisted i be in some of the pics, i guess because i’m the goonies fan who forced everyone into this excursion.

chunk. hazel’s fave.

derek’s favorite goonie is obviously data.

they even had data’s costume and bike, which was pretty cool.

we hit up the gift shop, scoring some fake gems and doubloons, stickers, patches, and these goonies chocolate coins, which were consumed in record time with zero appreciation for the fact that they were goonies coins. at least i managed a picture first.

on our way through astoria, we noticed a farmers market, so clearly we had no choice but to check it out, along with some shops in historic astoria downtown. then, it was lunch time (or well past lunch time). since we spent a million dollars the day before at the tillamook creamery and fancy pants lunch at a local brewery, we opted for cheap eats at the custard king.

everything was great. the only complaint i have is that all the entrees are served with fries. there’s no other option. and there’s no cheaper fry-less version of the meals. since we are on keto, we only ate the bunless burger and ended up with five orders of fries for three kids. they didn’t mind.

on our walk back to the car, i made hazel stop for an astoria sign and anchor photoshoot (derek and the kids were way ahead of us).

our last stop of the day was to try to get a picture of the actual goonies house. but first, some background information, as i understand it. the current owners of the goonies house purchased it to save it from being demolished. they are huge fans and set about restoring it. at first, they were very welcoming, allowing fans to walk up their driveway and take pictures. then, the 30th anniversary of goonies happened. and more and more people flocked to the little dead end street. and, as i’ve come to realize on this grand road trip, humans are the worst. people started going up on their porch, stealing things from their property and vandalizing things in some of the worst ways imaginable. plus, with the street being a quiet residential dead end, it was causing lots of problems for the neighbors too. eventually, the owners stopped allowing people to go up their driveway and have had to become quite forceful about people trespassing. there are “no parking/standing” signs on the street. and most recently, the house has been covered in tarps, although i’m not sure if it’s to discourage people from wanting photos, or to protect privacy, or even just some repairs.

the sad thing is, if you do a bit of instagram exploring, you’ll see that lots of people still feel entitled enough to disregard the signs and go up the driveway and take pics. and then they post some nasty sentiment about the owners being terrible. we have some local-ish friends (huge goonies fans) who have actually gotten to know the owners and said they are very nice and the whole thing just sucks. (my paraphrase). there’s also some drama with the city of astoria and what they will and won’t do to help the situation….

all of that to say. we weren’t going to get to walk up to the goonies house. we drove around and tried to find some spots where you can see the house from afar, and busted out the fancy zoomy camera. eventually, we decided to cruise down the street where the house is (without parking or stopping), to at least take a pic of the driveway and the keep out sign, for posterity.

then derek let me out and drove back to where parking was allowed and i was able to snap a couple pics of the house, before hustling back to the car without annoying neighbors. maybe someday, we will be able to visit this place once again. it’s so sad to see it like this, especially considering the circumstances.

once we had secured the goonies house photos, we stopped by the astoria brewery where it was rumored we might find a good selection of goonies merchandise. we didn’t find anything we wanted, but we did come across this photo booth that we couldn’t pass up.

before we left town, i snapped this pic of the astoria-megler bridge, that crosses the columbia river from astoria, oregon to megler, washington.

i had assumed at the time that this would be the end of our goonies themed adventures. but when our travel day took us through astoria and i was able to score easy parking at the astoria coffee company, we crammed in one more bit of nostalgia. in the actual movie, the appearance of this building is quick, in the background of rosalita crossing the street in the opening montage. but there’s a deleted scene that takes place inside the store. either way, the coffee shop that is in it’s place was pretty cool, too.

we picked up some coffee and hot chocolates for the road. plus. some other stuff.

like some ground goondocks coffee, which i had to have, despite being a medium roast. and a cool diner mug. and a patch of what the goonies house used to be.

and finally. our goonies tour was complete.