Trekkers

GOING COASTAL: We continue our look back to last week's adventures afield.  For a large part of our journey, we trekked down Highway 101, which often affords lovely views of the Pacific Ocean.

At the stop above, we learned that we have a gentleman named Oswald West to thank for access to the coastline in to perpetuity. 

A Democrat and the 14th governor of Oregon, West established Oregon's beach highway law, proclaiming the entire Pacific coastline to the high tide line to be a public highway, thereby preserving scenery and beach access for future generations.

What a swell thing to do, right? 

On the highway just south of Cannon Beach, we saw a number of monolithic rocks. Haystack Rock is the most famous and biggest. Below is a photo of one of the 'smaller' rocks, dotted with shore birds.

We read with great interest the tale of "Terrible Tille," a lighthouse built on one of the monoliths near Haystack Rock. 

Just barely visible in the photo below, the lighthouse was built on a chunk of basalt 1.2 miles offshore of Tillamook Head.

Conditions were treacherous and it took more than 575 days to build the lighthouse over 575 days, starting in 1879. 

The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1957. It got 'new life' in 1980, when it became a warehouse for cremains, but that license was revoked in 1999. Now "Terrible Tilly" just sits there on the monolith, with a few guests on board for all eternity.

Further down the highway, we arrived at the headquarters of Tillamook Cheese (and ice cream)!

 Many photo opps were on site. 

The view of the factory floor was super interesting. We stood and watched for several minutes. 

 After the factory view, we enjoyed some samples. 

Here's CJ's summary of our part of our adventure:

Recently, my family went on a road trip down to Siletz, Oregon, to see my grandparents. On the way there, we made several stops, One of which was in Tillamook, Oregon, home of the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. Tillamook Dairy is a creamery, most well known for their cheese, with their cheddar variation being the 2nd best selling cheddar cheese brand in the world. The Cheese Factory contains a visitor center, where visitors can enter and begin a self-guided tour of the factory. The tour was relatively short, with the primary stop being windows where you could see two different parts of the cheese production process. In the first large room, the cheese ingredients were mixed together, with the curds being put together, and the excess liquid being removed from the tub. After binding, the curds would then be packed into 40-pound blocks, and sent to age in the warehouse.

After the cheese has significantly aged, the blocks get sent to the next room. In the second room, the cheese blocks would be cut into smaller blocks (the ones you see on the store shelf,) with small slices being cut off the top to be put into slice packets. The smaller blocks are then manually put into plastic packages, whereafter they go to a peculiar-looking "octopus" machine. According to a sign at the factory, the "octopus" looking vacuum sealers give each packet an airtight seal. Packages are run through a heat shrink tunnel, then pass through a metal detector for safety. The now-airtight cheese packages are then sent to the next room, unseen to people taking the self-guided tour.

I enjoyed my visit to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and I recommend a visit for anybody travelling on the Oregon coast.

NEAR NEWPORT: On Wednesday, we reached Siletz, Oregon, home of beloved Nonnie and Bops. The grounds of their home were beautiful, as always. 

 Loved this fern seeming to emerge from a moss-covered tree trunk. 

 While checking out the orchard, we got a mini lesson in grafting. 

We headed back up to Seattle on Friday, stopping briefly in Puyallup for the Washington State Spring Fair. 

Good times. :)