Tillamook, OR

After Astoria, I headed down the Oregon coast.  For a few nights, I stayed in Tillamook.  Tillamook is known for Tillamook cheese.  I had never heard of it, but it seems to be popular in the Northwest.  Below is a picture of their factory.  The color is a bit off due to their lights and taking pictures through the glass windows.   This is the part of the factory where they cut and package the cheese. 

My favorite place around Tillamook was Oceanside Beach.  At Oceanside I looked for agates.  Also there were sea stacks, sea life and an interesting way to get to one of the beaches. 

To get to my favorite beach in Oceanside, you had to take a dark tunnel from one beach.  Going thru the dark tunnel, you had to step on and over rocks – it made for an exciting trip!  The picture above is the view just as I was exciting the tunnel.  The picture below is the tunnel entrance/exit – as you can see it’s not fancy!

Oceanside is one of several cities along the 3 capes scenic loop.  I spent several days touring this area.   The picture below is of one of the spits taken from a wayside on the drive. 

I enjoyed several hikes while in this area.  I went to another waterfall. It was misting the day I went to Munson Creek waterfall, but I’m learning that it does that a lot and you just have to keep going.

Another great hike I did was the Cape Lookout trail.  This trail takes you thru a rain forest while hiking out to the ocean on the cape.  It rained part of the way, but I figured rain while hiking in a rain forest made sense.  The ferns and moss were great! Having the rain forest on one side of you and the ocean on the other (down the cliff) was a great treat!!

Another of the capes was Cape Meares.  Just like waterfalls, I could just sit here and watch the water.  I love watching the waves hit the sea stacks.