Pat and I made a small vacation trip to Seaside, Oregon last week and, instead of going to the beach, the pool or the hot tubs, we did some sightseeing and learned a few things about Washington that we had missed in school.

We visited Fort Clatsop, where Lewis and Clark set up their winter camp during their Corps of Discovery expedition to the Pacific Coast in 1804-06. We also visited Fort Stevens, which was named for Washington's first governor.

We visited Fort Clatsop because Pat and I have long been fascinated by the courage of the members of the Lewis and Clark mission. We visited Fort Stevens to see if it was, indeed, named for Isaac Stevens, as Pat was suggesting.

Pat was correct, and we learned a few more things while we were at the fort. Until then, all Pat and I knew about Stevens was that he convened the 1855 conference in Walla Walla that led to peace between the Yakama Nation and the Territory of Washington.

I did not agree with Pat that the fort was named for Isaac Stevens. I couldn't believe the state of Oregon would name one of its facilities in honor of the Washington governor.

I was right. Oregon did not do that.

It was the federal government.

After serving as governor of Washington territory, Stevens fought with the U.S. Army in the Civil War. He died in battle in Virginia in 1862.

Stevens was given the rank of general posthumously and, when Abraham Lincoln decided in 1863 to build a fort on the Oregon coast to protect the entrance to the Columbia River, it was named in honor of Stevens.

At Fort Clatsop, Pat and I learned we were wrong about the Lewis and Clark arrival at the Pacific. Both of us were under the impression that they had first seen the Pacific somewhere between Astoria and Seaside.

Actually, they saw the Pacific for the first time at the southwestern-most tip of Washington in November of 1804. Based on the experiences of the local Indians, the Chinooks, they hoped to eventually see a trade ship from which they would be able to resupply their mission.

The ship never came, and the expedition headed back inland to escape the harsh winter weather of the Pacific. Lewis and Clark named the southwestern tip Cape Disappointment because of their disappointment.

Had it not been for the incessant rains of southwestern Washington, Lewis and Clark might never have seen the Oregon coast. After going upriver a few miles, they couldn't find suitable shelter. So they opted for the Oregon side of the river on the word of the Clatsops, who visited the Washington side of the river regularly.

The Clatsops told Lewis and Clark there was plenty to eat in their territory and invited them to winter there. The expedition crossed the Columbia at about present-day Astoria and worked its way to high ground about six miles inland from present-day Warrenton. There they built Fort Clatsop and settled in for the wettest winter of their lives.

Among other reasons, the Corps of Discovery visited the Oregon coast that winter to mine salt with which to temper the wild foods they had to eat.