Beaches and Cheese....

Day 10:

Belle looks out the window at a bunny in the RV park in Cannon Beach.

Starting out in Cannon Beach, we drove to Tillamook.  The mileage sign said 40 miles, but it took us several hours to get there.  I guess you could nickname this morning as my personal ADD day.  First, we stopped at Arcadia Beach, then a store, then a winery, finally an overlook before finally making it to the cheese factory.

Rebekah and Jenny wore matching Twilight T-shirts to Arcadia Beach.

The cheese factory was interesting but a little disappointing.  It seemed like an overrated gift shop rather than an actual dairy.  And the parts of the factory that were on display were mainly concerned with cutting and packaging.  I would have liked to show the kids the actual cheese-making section of the factory, but it wasn't visible on the tour.

A beautiful bay is the habitat of migrating whales.

After the tour, Jenny wanted the crab cakes from the store across the street, so we drove over and she fed Jonathan while Rebekah and I walked in to order. They were out of bread bowls; they were out of crab cakes.  But the chowder was good.  The fish seemed a bit overcooked.  Nonetheless, it was our lunch today.  Next door to the crab shack was a coffee shop that advertised free wifi, so I went in to post my blog.  The coffee was a little dark for my taste, but I succeeded in posting my blog for yesterday.

Everyone having finished his lunch, we took off, turning at 3rd Street in Tillamook, which turned into Hwy 6 and took us through Portland.  Hwy 6 turned out to be a windy, twisty road that followed a nice river and went through a pretty, little canyon.  Rebekah was getting carsick, but she made it through.  By the time we got on the highway, the only one still awake (besides me, of course) was Ben.

We could see Mount Hood in the distance as we approached Portland, driving through downtown shortly before the traffic became unbearably busy and not stopping until after Salem.  When we finally did stop to get gas, the attendant came up to my car and pumped my gas for me.  It was a surprise to me, but he said that the law in Oregon says that an attendant must pump gas for vehicles receiving fuel.

Our next stop was in Cottage Grove, where we let the children play for a while at McDonald's while the sun set.  For the next couple of hours, we drove in the dark, stopping at a rest stop and turning off the highway in Grants Pass toward Crescent City, CA, staging us to see the Redwoods National Park tomorrow morning.

Wildlife to date:  2 moose, 21 bears, 3 deer, 6 rabbits, 1 squirrel.