Tillamook Oregon, must be Tillabars Time

We ended up staying at Stan Hedwall Park for 3 nights, and drove over to Tillamook today (Monday).  It was a nice drive with a short stop for gas at Fred Meyers in Longview.  We had not driven this route, US 30 to Cornelius Pass Road to 26 and then to 6 before.  Only Cornelius Pass Road was narrow...the rest of the roads were just fine.  Stan Hedwall Park is not bad at all for $15 per night, water, electric, dump station.  Not far off I-5, and the trains that run near can be heard, but no whistles, and the sound is heavily muted by the trees and brush between the park and the tracks.  Yes, we heard trains...no, they did not wake us or bother us at all.

Of course, if in Tillamook, a visit to the cheese factory to pick up some Tillabars is in order.  Marcia was a bit tired, so she sent me over, and I came back with some cheese, and five boxes of Tillabars.  Showed her this yummy Raspberry Truffle box and told her I got five boxes of them.  Of course, she and my sister Sandy want Lemon ones...but send a man to do a job, and you get what you get.

Well, just because I am a man does not mean I have stupid written across my forehead!  Only one box was Raspberry, the other four are Lemon.  

Karen and Tony were also in the Tillamook area, and knowing that we were headed that way, Karen contacted me and they too stayed at the Port of Tillamook RV Park, also called the Tillamook Airport RV Park.  For $15 you get nothing other than peace and quiet and place to put your RV...although if you need water, they a few spouts in the park to fill up from.  We all went out to dinner to the Pelican Brewery & Tap Room which was a place that they can park their RV at since they travel solely in their RV, which accommodates Karen's need to be in a wheelchair.  This is their third wheelchair accommodated RV, and I think they like this one the best.  They have been fulltiming since 1993, and in October of that same year she had a freak accident at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival which left her paralyzed from the waist down.  That did not stop them from their dream to travel though.  Karen has assembled one of the best collection of RV travel related and also wheelchair related maps and resources than anything I have seen on the Internet.  Give them a visit at their website, Rolling in a RV - Wheelchair Traveling.   Nice seeing you again Karen and Tony...until our paths cross again...

How Do You Say It, Without Rubbing It In?

It is 72 degrees, and what is that thing that Marcia is eating?

WOW, never seen anything like this…is that YELLOW stuff LEMON by chance?  (By now my sister Sandy has to fuming!  It is 102+ in Citrus Heights, and her sister-in-law is rubbing it in by eating a LEMON Ice Cream Bar?)

   

Remember to click on the images to get them bigger and readable

A Tillamook “Lemonilla Tillabars” no less!!!   I think we might have just lost our free parking place in the backyard!  We can hear her now….”Arny, burn those ramps!”  (we have to get over her curb using wooden ramps or we might break our black tank lines like we did two years ago)

Thanks to our friends and fellow bloggers Ron and Barbara whom we met in Port Angeles, they suggested staying at the Port of Tillamook RV Park, which is total dry camping for $12 per night.  Right now there are five other campers, four RVs and one tent.  No frills, little noise, and only five miles away from Lemonilla Tillabars, I mean, the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

   

A look around us shows very few campers, lots of room, grass for the dogs, and I think we will have a peaceful night.  But all is not good..for one, those Lemonilla Tillabars only come three per box and I am going to be LUCKY to get more than the two bites I got off the first bar.  Second, when we were here in 2012 we found some Lemon Cheese at the Blue Heron…so we went there for lunch, but alas, no Lemon Cheese this time.  Third, since it is only 5 miles away I KNOW Marcia is going to want me to go back and get more bars….but our freezer can only handle so much…

Back in 2012 we spent a few days in Tillamook, including a tour of the Cheese Factory.  (Picture above was taken back then.)  If you want to see what one can do in Tillamook, visit our blog back in time at these two posts:

Three Capes Scenic Drive - Tillamook Oregon

Tillamook - Air Museum, Cheese Factory & a Waterfall

(Just remember, we did not have a good camera back then, so the picture quality won’t be very good)

Marcia was busy busy busy with the camera on the drive from Long Beach over to Tillamook.  Here she got a picture of the Columbia River as it meets the Pacific, with Oregon faintly visible over there somewhere.

The Astoria–Megler Bridge from the North side.  This is one long bridge, over 4 miles long, with a height of 196 ft. clearance at High Tide…it must have been low tide because it looked a lot further down than 196 feet.

This is a view from the north looking south not even a mile into the crossing.  The north end passes over non-navigable waters, so is much lower.  The bridge first opened in 1966, and is undergoing a massive repainting.

Now we have been climbing up, and about to enter the southern portion which goes over navigable waters…very large ships, oil tankers, freighters, pass under it.

Over 7,000 cars, on average, go across the bridge every day.  On the south end the road makes a full circle to allow cars to go either towards Portland, or towards the Pacific once they cross over the bridge.  As one who gets a bit queasy looking down from high places, crossing a bridge like this does not bother me because I am not near the edge.  Even looking out a window from let’s say the 24th floor of a high rise is fine…as long as I look out and not down.

   

One thing about traveling along the coast of Washington, Oregon and even California is that there is green, lushness all around.

And the ocean views of the Pacific are unreal…like this one which shows a bit of the marine layer holding on before it burns off for the day.

As we get closer to Tillamook, we come to Tillamook Bay, which has a sandbar running through a major portion of it along US 101.

The views along this stretch of the road are just wonderful…

   

And the community capitalizes on the view with train rides.  This is engine 25 of the old McCloud Railroad.  Back in July Marcia and I went to McCloud California and I wrote about the history of this logging town, including their vast railroad that included the states of California, Oregon, Washington,and Idaho.  Visit our post McCloud California, A Nice Little Town to see a map of this huge lumber railroad…this Engine was part of that railroad!

We get one more look of Tillamook Bay, then we roll the six more miles inland to Tillamook.  Tomorrow we plan to make Newport…Nancy (see yesterday’s post) told us of a good seafood place that we want to give a try…nothing fancy, just great food.