A Sunday Drive

Last weekend Ricky had his NW Athletic Trainers' conference in Seaside, OR (northwest OR). Neither of us had ever been to Seaside, so we used this as an excuse to go somewhere new (and for me to have some lazy time in the hotel). Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate most of the time we were in Seaside. It was cold, raining (not our usual drizzle--RAINING) and super windy. Yuck! But the town of Seaside itself was pretty neat, and we did enjoy some good fresh seafood. On Sunday when it was time for us to travel home the weather was nicer, and we had a decision to make. Did we take the same boring route we came that had the potential for stopping and doing a bit of shopping at the nice outlet malls (up the interstate 2 hours and then travel west for an hour to get to the coast) or should we take the longer drive along the coastline? Ricky was leaning toward the idea that getting home quicker was better, but I convinced him to go "the long way" for the scenery (in exchange for driving the last leg of the trip). 

The first town we came to after Seaside was Cannon Beach. Cannon beach has a cool landmark known as haystack rock. It is beautiful and super close to the coast line. The town is full of rolling hills and scenic views of the coast from above. We loved this little town and decided we need to add a summer weekend stay here to our list of things to do.

Haystack rock from a distance.

Haystack rock a bit closer up.

A serene beach with no one in sight.

After driving for about an hour (seeing beautiful coastline and some pretty countryside), we arrived in another anticipated destination--Tillamook. Tillamook Oregon is famous to us because our favorite dairy products since moving to Oregon are "Tillamook," and they are produced in this town (rumor is they've been spotted in AR, too). We got to stop at the cheese factory, which is set up pretty much like a museum. We were both super excited about this, and we spent a good couple of hours here. While they don't package cheese on the weekends, they were doing some other things in the factory (pressing the curds into huge blocks and vacuum sealing them for the aging process). 

Ricky posing outside the factory for me. He didn't feel at all dorky posing outside the cheese factory (wink wink). Thanks, hubby!

It's their 100th anniversary.

This is where they were packing the cheese curds into 42 pound blocks, wrapping in plastic, vacuum sealing, and sending them to the aging warehouse.

We waited in line to taste several different types of cheese.

And then we shopped in the store full of Tillamook products. Which to choose? We ended up with the anniversary white cheddar...yummy!
 

They had a variety of great sandwiches at the deli all of which were made with Tillamook cheese products of course! Ricky had a grilled cheese with several different types of cheese.

 

And last but definitely not least, they had a bunch of ice cream flavors and fresh waffle cones (the waffle cone smell was hard to ignore but we were good and waited until AFTER lunch). Tillamook ice cream is amazing from the carton but even better when you can have almost any flavor you could imagine (including peppermint, bubblegum among others). Ricky went with Pistachio Pecan, and I had something chocolate with fudge pieces.

Here are a few more scenic pictures of the coastline. We've now officially seen almost all of the Oregon coast.