It started raining during the night, luckily we had the yurt and weren't cold or wet. We decided to hit the road earlier than Monday so quickly loaded up the van and grabbed breakfast on our way. There was still a lot of driving ahead of us, at least six hours until we reached my mom's house not counting the stops we wanted to make.
We made a stopped at the Yaquina Head lighthouse which was out on bluffs and is one of the few working lighthouses left on the Oregon coast. After a 77 foot climb we were able to take a peek at the light and the view from the top. Other than the gray skies, it was beautiful.
Next stop was at Tillamook Cheese Factory. Mmm good. We reached the observation deck just before the workers shut down the assembly line for lunch. It was so crowded with tourists and we didn't have much time to stay but we made sure to grab some Tillamook ice cream, mmm good, and buy cheese in the gift shop.
The rest of the day was spent driving. When we were heading in from the coast, my mom and I decided to take a non-highway road to save some miles. Unfortunately it's not marked well on the atlas we had and we missed a turn. After traveling 11 miles (we figured we were safe since there was mile markers) we found ourselves in Girabaldi for a second time! We thought we were going north east but actually we were going south west and ended up on the coast again (hard to navigate with the thick clouds). So much for our short cut. We went back up the same road and found the correct turn only to find that the road was closed due to a downed bridge. Hmm. Back to the regular highway for us. We made jokes about our mistake for the rest of the day.
Finally we found our way to my mom's house and arrived about 7:15 in the evening. Phew. It was a fun three days with lots of driving, lots of scenery and lots of fun.
Forgot to mention we learned that marshmallows, giant ones, are grown and harvested in Tillamook county as well. =) While we were driving through the Tillamook valley Josh shouts out "marshmallows!" and over in the fields were what looked like giant marshmallows. They really were giant rolls of hay with white covers but definitely looked like marshmallows. Josh snagged a picture of some harvested "marshmallows" as we drove by.
Look at these HUGE blocks of cheese before they're cut down into the sizes we buy. I figure it's at least 20 pounds of cheese! The lights in the factory were orangish. I didn't learn why but my guess is it has something to do with preserving the cheese. I wonder if it's cold in there too.
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