Lincoln City, OR to Portland, OR

4/30

Lincoln City, OR to Portland, OR

It rained hard last night, and the ground was wet and slick as we loaded the truck up. After breakfast, we headed out toward Tillamook, one of the places that I have been looking forward to seeing for a long time. As the sun came out, the road dried in the sunshine, but the trees over the road created rain shadows.

Mini-Milk!!

Tillamook is Native American for “land of many waters”, and it has many creeks and rivers running through this coastal valley to the ocean. The cows here all graze in pastures, not the congested feed lots in El Paso, TX. They look so happy, laying there chewing their cud.

Low riding in the Cheese Van

The Tillamook Cheese Factory is owned by the farmers that produced the milk and has been since 1909. They use 1 million gallons of milk per day to create over 160,000 pounds of cheese every day. That’s a lot of cheese!! When we got to the factory, they were making 5 lb loafs of medium cheddar. We got to watch the packing room as they robotically weigh, trim, and package block after block of cheese. There is even a person sitting at the very end of the line to verify that the packaging is correct. What a boring job, doing the same thing over and over again. I don’t think that I could do that.

Mithril

After the tour, we went into the gift shop, where they had all different kinds of cheese for sale. Many of these cheeses are not available back home. Yes, I bought a lot… They also make many other dairy products like yogurt, sour cream, and even ice cream. Oh yes, their ice cream is heavenly! We both got a mini 3 scoop samplers, and every flavor was amazing.

After leaving Tillamook, we headed up Route 6, away from the 101, toward Portland. Route 6 goes up into the mountains above Tillamook, following the Wilson River. We stopped at the Footbridge Trailhead to take some pictures of a small waterfall. The rocks are very slippery in front of the waterfall, I almost slipped several times. There was a beautiful blue jay hopping from branch to branch as we walked back to the truck.

Portland is a very big city, but their downtown area is quaint and walkable. The streets are lined with sycamore trees, and people generally seem very nice and helpful. We ended up at Hotel Fifty, a nice boutique hotel along the river. We can see the river from our window, as well as the Cinco de Mayo fair they are setting up in the park.

I had promised Shawna a manicure, so we asked the ladies at the front desk to recommend a place, and we ended up at Onyx, a lovely little nail shop in the Pearl District. Beebee, a young Vietnamese lady, runs the shop and she is very bubbly and entertaining. She has been in the US for 15 years, and because she has children now, can’t visit Vietnam like she used to. She did a very good job on my nails (yes, I got one too…)

After the manicure, we went to Piazza Italia, a very authentic Italian restaurant. All the waiters spoke Italian, and it seemed as if they had just gotten off the boat from Italy. We were told later that it used to be run by the mob. She got the spaghetti and meatballs and I had rigatoni with meat sauce. Fantastic…