What a change! After a final butter-melting day in the Portland area, we headed for the coast. The clouds were predominating the sky and it was much cooler. We tooled along OR-26 until we didn’t and began crawling along for a couple of miles. We finally saw the cause: an old beater station wagon that almost made it to a place where it would be out of the traffic, but not quite. We reached Tillamook fairly early in the afternoon and took off to see Cape Meares. It has the stubbiest lighthouse on the Oregon coast; it’s very cute. It could be short because it’s on a high cliff. It was decommissioned in the 60’s and was going to be bulldozed into the sea, but was left to molder instead. Finally, a few townspeople started working to refurbish it. Then, in 2010, a couple of local boys shot out the windows and the old Fresnel lens, doing $500,000 in damage. They turned themselves in, got sentenced to some time and are working on paying $100,000 in restitution.
Back on the coast road after the lighthouse, we got to go about 4 miles further before reaching Oceanside and the end of the road. A landslide took out the road and so to see the southern part, you drive back the way you came and head south on US-101. As with Devil’s Slide and Big Sur, the Pacific Ocean can take out roads pretty easily. One interesting thing we’ve noticed in some seaside towns is the tsunami evacuation signs that point people to roads that go up into the mountains. I guess there are sirens that tell you to rise up as fast as you can. We finished off the afternoon at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We breezed through the self-guided tour, watching workers cut enormous blocks of cheese into smaller portions and control the machines that wrap and box all the yellow gold. Our real destination was the ice cream vendor. We painstakingly perused the many flavors. I settled for Caramel Butter Pecan (where was the caramel?) and Udderly Chocolate (not utterly chocolate, but very good). Dave got Tillamook Mudslide (the best!) and Cinnamon something-or-other that was also very good.
On Tuesday, we headed north to Nehalem Bay State Park to hook up with the Lazy Daze Northwest Caravan Club. It is so strange to wander around the large campground and see batches of Lazy Dazes throughout. What a fun bunch of people. The Wagonmaster is Pete Reed, a born leader and competent, creative auctioneer. As “newbies” we were asked to introduce ourselves and were warmly taken in. They had arranged to use the State Park meeting room for meals, and our first dinner had 60 of us crammed together. Everyone was asked to bring “heavy finger food” and this group can cook! It was all great. Most of the members live in Oregon and Washington and were full of helpful advice for where we should go and what we should see.
After a huge breakfast, Cannon Beach was on our agenda for Wednesday. It’s a cute little tourist town right on a beautiful beach with some giant sea stacks off shore. The skies were cloudy and the light was great. There were many clumps of seaweed on the shore and what was interesting was that every clump had feathers entwined in them. I don’t know at what point the feathers get glued in, but a lot of birds must lose their feathers over and on the ocean. We also visited Ecola State Park. A 1.5-mile drive down to the viewpoints felt like a descent into Jurassic Park: it was dark and dank and foliage threatened to take over the road. At one viewpoint, we listened to a lady insisting that there was a whale out by the rocks, even though it wasn’t spouting or moving. At another viewpoint, we talked for a while with a former surfer, who was thinking about making surfboard coffee tables (smaller than full-size).
We returned back for a fantastic BBQ chicken dinner, provided by Larry and Donna Kriegshauser, supplemented by salads and desserts from the rest of us. After dinner both nights, Pete conducted an auction of stuff that people had donated. He had some trouble with his ears, hearing bids higher than what was bid. The proceeds go into the club’s kitty. The items ranged from a beautiful handmade quilt to “fine Idaho potatoes”. They even auctioned off the leftover BBQ chicken. We scored a bag of potatoes, two handmade Lazy Daze coasters and some bamboo place mats. I waited too long to bid on a Sumo wrestler jigsaw puzzle.
Thursday, after a blessedly small breakfast of oatmeal at home, a hamburger and hot dog lunch was provided by local residents Michelle and Tony Vinciguerra. We waddled away from that so that I could get back to the rig and prepare something for the final pot luck dinner. And that will end the food-centric portion of this trip for a while, I think.
