We love S’mores and we love bacon. But among us is one who loves cheese above all other food categories so she was pretty well geeked to tour the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Okay, we all were. What’s not to love about cheese?
Tillamook is not paying us to write an ad here so we'll dispense with the words and offer up the photos instead. Besides, cheese speaks for itself. It says, "Eat up." Don't mind if we do!
Tillamook is not paying us to write an ad here so we'll dispense with the words and offer up the photos instead. Besides, cheese speaks for itself. It says, "Eat up." Don't mind if we do!
After that tour we visited the Tillamook Air Museum. Housed in a very large wooden frame hangar, it was once home to a fleet of naval blimps that helped defend the Pacific coast against U-boat attacks. None of the dirigibles are there now, just a lot of airplanes, a great movie, exhibits and a colony of barn owls that love to nest in the lofty rafters of the hangar. I know plenty about owls, but reading the exhibits and displays made me realize just how little I really know about World War II. Since we homeschool I plan to kill two birds with one stone and rectify that in the near future (my children should consider themselves warned) (I’m speaking figuratively, of course -- no owls will be harmed in the education of our clan).
Taller than it looks here, but not much. And after that tour, we drove out to see the Cape Meares Lighthouse. In the brief free tour we learned a lot about this piece of Oregon history. The guide rattled it off so fast I could not keep up because you know, my brain is sort of on this extended vacation. It (the light, not my brain) was commissioned in 1899 and unceremoniously decommissioned in 1967 with the advent of modern coastal lighting systems. It has suffered at the hands of thieves and vandals and been lovingly restored by community volunteers (not so for my brain). I got one of my burning questions answered: "Why are most lighthouses kind of short?" Well, on the Pacific coast fog is frequent and a light taller than about 250 feet above sea level will be shrouded in mist and invisible. Seriously, I have always wondered about that because when I was a little kid and drew typical little kid pictures of lighthouse we always made them about 800 feet tall with black and white stripes. All of us did. Somewhere there is a lighthouse that started that urban elementary school art legend and the other lighthouses all hate it for creating a dumb stereotype they can't live up to.
There is quite a lot to do and enjoy here in this little corner of Oregon and we only have a couple of more days before we head north into Washington. I'll be posting more photos tomorrow.
-Jenni
There is quite a lot to do and enjoy here in this little corner of Oregon and we only have a couple of more days before we head north into Washington. I'll be posting more photos tomorrow.
-Jenni