The Tillamook visitor center was huge but it was more than a visitor center. It’s a working creamery and they only produce cheddar. Their monthly quota is 1.3m pounds of cheddar. That’s a shit load of cheese. Our tour guide has been there multiple years and started as an ice cream scooper. She’s very proud of her different roles and jobs of the company. She gets 20 pounds of free cheese a year. Her family loves that. You could do a self guided tour, but we’re glad we actually spent the time and money on the tour. The most disappointing part of the tour was the ice cream line was so long we couldn’t do it. There’s so many yummy lovely ice cream’s. They pride themselves on the creaminess of their ice cream so we were going to hunt down a container of it somewhere in this town.

We saw the whole process of cheese making from when the milk in the way, separate to chopping and slicing and packaging the cheeses. The equipment is huge and the people working there. Rotate every 15 minutes to a new position. I guess that’s one way not to get too bored doing your work.

After leaving Tillamook, we headed towards the Cape Meares lighthouse. This was the most southern part of our coastal adventure. On our way we were craving some coastline views and followed signs to Cape Lookout. We found our way to Netarts bay, beach and viewpoints. We tried very hard to get the shot below, but I did steal this from someone online. But it’s exactly what we saw.

Regarding Cape Meares, we took a gamble because according to Google, it was closed today. We drove up this one road crossing our fingers that we could get a look, and luckily the gates were open and many people were walking around the property. Walking down to the lighthouse, gave us a good workout today. It was quite steep, but paved at least. The view of the coast line was amazing.

We tried to find Garibaldi Historic US Coast Guard Boathouse and Crabbing dock, but had no luck. Technically, we found the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, but not worth the time. We did find crabbing piers and fishing boats, and the three graces (rocks), but they were close to the road and hard to capture well.

When looking for the Neahkahnie Mountain lookout, we found a the beach. We took a brief walk on the beach and saw a few kite surfers. It was quite windy and they were catching some air.

We stopped at Cannon Beach for a late lunch (linner) at the Wayfarer restaurant. We both had a lot of food. As an appetizer, we had a Dungeness crab cocktail and then for lunch we each ate a sandwich, which had Dungeness crab on a delicious baguette. it just so happens that the restaurant overlooks the infamous haystacks of Cannon Beach.

Our place in Astoria is beautiful, overlooking the Columbia river and Washington, just to the right of the bridge however, we can’t see the bridge. The owner turned what they called their captains cottage into an Airbnb. We were greeted by two deer on the front lawn when we arrived. Our plan tomorrow is to do a few things in Astoria have sort of a chill day because we’re exhausted from running around.