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.