We left Neskowin fairly early this morning and headed north up through Tillamook and on to Seaside. We wanted to get an early start and it was a good job we did as when we got to the park in Seaside it was already quite full and the ranger told us that 50 people were leaving this morning but that they were expecting 50+ people to arrive.  The park is split into two sections, the north and the south; we drove around both before deciding that the north side had too many bloody kids and we found a nice spot on the south side. This was another spot that we had to back into and we got into it once again without and yelling – maybe we really are getting better at this. We got all set up and settled in ready for our next two weeks here, hopefully before we leave the berries behind us will have ripened enough to pick.

Mike: This is a nice area! Becc, you don't get up early enough to beat the birds!!!!

Relaxing because he works so hard!

Seaside, OR

Berries - will I get to them before the birds?

The only thing we did in the past three days was to take a drive to Salem. As with the trip to Eugene, the drive was lovely but the city was just another city.  Mike enjoyed the drive and also his shopping as he got to go in Harbor Freight and a whole bunch of auto parts stores – I’m glad I took a book with me.
So this morning we got up early and took a drive back into Pacific City. The main reason we went was to get gas ready for tomorrow but since we were there we decided to take a walk on the beach. Parking was much easier this morning and the beach was quite quiet and the views of Cape Kiwanda’s sandstone cliffs and the 327-foot Haystack Rock were excellent.

Cape Kiwanda

this looked like an old mans head on the beach, not so much in the photo

Haystack Rock

We got onto the beach just as a truck pulling a dory drove on to it, so we got to watch them launch it from the beach. Dories are flat-bottomed fishing boats that the fishermen, instead of navigating the Nestucca Bay channel, launch through the surf in the same way that they have for generations. There is no other fishing fleet exactly like this one anywhere in the world. After a day fishing the dories slide back onto the beach with their catch that is mostly bought by the local restaurants.

Mike: I didn't know there were sooo! many crabs in the whole world, but they have a bunch here!
(not you Becc)

As well as watching the one boat launch we thought we were going to see one coming back on to the beach but he was just dropping of one of the fishermen with buckets full of crab before heading back out to the ocean.

It was a drive north today for us to cheese, cheese and more cheese, as we headed to Tillamook. We headed out on the 101 and made our first stop about 7 miles south of Tillamook to gawk at the highest waterfall on the Oregon Coast, Munson Falls. We drove several miles off the highway before parking and walking the last ¼ mile to the falls. Since we’d gotten an early start we were the only ones in the area, which was cool; we had the trail to ourselves and got to appreciate the surroundings in peace. The walk was easy and very beautiful with some amazing trees, unfortunately, some of the trees had fallen and blocked the path tot he falls at some point in the past and so we couldn’t get any closer than we did. It didn’t matter, the falls looked amazing from where we were standing, and we had no problem viewing the 266-foot falls.

On the way to the falls

Munson Falls

Cool trees and Mike

Xena waiting patiently for us to return

Our next stop was at the south end of Tillamook at the world’s largest wooden structure. Here, in a World War II blimp hangar is housed the Tillamook Air Museum which has more than 20 vintage aircraft on display. We weren’t going to visit this museum but I’m glad we did as it was really cool. We watched a video showing how this hangar, and another identical one was built to house 8 blimps each during WWII. The guys that put those structures up were amazing, considering the speed in which they did it (they built the second hangar in just 27 days), and the conditions they had to work in. It’s hard from the pictures to see just how big the hangar is, but imagine a 252-foot blimp (the K class that were housed here that were used for anti-submarine coast patrol), and then imagine 8 of them side by side and you’ll get the picture – it’s massive! Actually, it’s 1,072 feet long, 192 feet high, and 296 feet wide, like I said, massive.

It really is huge

'K' class were hangared here

This is how they looked


Helium Room  

The aircraft were really cool to look at and in too. Most of the pilots of these planes must have been really cramped and uncomfortable while flying them as the cockpits are so small. There were a bunch of different ones from different decades that I’m not even going to attempt to name, just look at the pictures.

Mike: Unfortunately I remember some of these planes when I was in the service!

Someone was a busy boy

After wandering among the aircraft for a while we took off and headed through Tillamook to find the cheese. We stopped first at the Blue Heron French Cheese Co., which is basically a store (you don’t get to see them making the cheese here), but they have samples of Brie so it’s definitely worth stopping at. The cheese was gorgeous, and when it was spread on warm french bread it was even better. Mike wasn’t into the Brie so much, but there was lots of pickles and mustard and jams to try so he was happy too.

Happy, happy.

After dragging myself away from the Brie counter it was off to the reason we came here, the Tillamook Cheese factory. The place was crazy when we got there, there were people everywhere, it was nuts. We got parked and headed inside and the first port of call was the cheese tasting line. They had six or so different kinds of their cheese for us to sample as well as cheese curds. We ate curds in Wisconsin but these were much better, although no where near as tasty as their garlic cheddar which was amazing. Then we headed upstairs to check out the cheese making process. They have viewing windows where you can look down on the floor of the factory as the cheese is made and packed, and there are descriptions above the windows explaining what was happening below. The trouble was that with so many people milling around is was difficult to read everything and see what was going on. We did see them trimming the 40 lb blocks of cheese and I think I might like to have one of those bins that they were throwing all the trimmed off bits in to. They make around 167,000 pounds of cheese at this factory every day – that’s a lot of cheese – so I don’t think they’d miss a few ends. We tried their ice cream too, of which there are 38 flavours, and it wasn’t bad, but the cheese was just lovely.

Mike: I thought maybe, they would hire me as a cheese/ice cream/ fudge inspector but no openings!

Mmmmm

Cheese, cheese, and more cheese

I want the ends!

Each vat holds 53,500 pounds of milk, it takes 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese,  and each vat makes 3 batches of cheese a day - that's a lot of cheese!

We didn’t take the 101 back home but instead did the Three Capes Loop which runs along the coast from Tillamook to Pacific City and as its name suggests encompasses three capes, Cape Meares, Cape Lookout, and Cape Kiwanda. The drive was beautiful with some amazing views of the coastline. We stopped at Cape Meares to have lunch at Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint and visited the Cape Meares Light, which is an inactive lighthouse, Oregon’s shortest at only 38 feet. From the cape we had excellent views of Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge which is home to the largest breeding colony of tufted puffins along the coast.

Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge

Cape Meares Lighthouse

Can you see the birds?

Do you see them now?

After lunch we continued our drive along the loop taking in more magnificent scenery. We tried to stop at Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City but it was so crowded that we couldn’t park anywhere so we headed on home and will probably visit later in the week.