Touring Oregon Day 05

Friday, July 9, 2021

Our first stop today is Devil’s Punchbowl State Park. Very interesting natural formations here. We happen to be here at low tide so the waves are barely making their way into the bowl. We can only imagine what it looks like at high tide!

Next stop is Cape Meares Lighthouse. This one, you can hike a short trail and look down on the lighthouse! Driving away from the lighthouse, we spot the “Buoy Tree”! Can you find it? Next up is a visit to Cape Foulweather but unfortunately, the museum is closed. So we drive on up the coast and come across more views at Gammon Launch, a pioneering hang glider launch location! We drive further up Cape Meares with views of the ocean on our left and Tillamook Bay on the right with a quaint and cozy little town at the end of it!

There is no bridge to go further north at this point so we turn around and drive back south around the bay and head a few miles inland to Tillamook for lunch. First we take a self guided tour of the Tillamook Cheese Factory and see just how cheese is made. It’s an intriguing process for sure! Then we check out the food available and the lines are huge and the prices high. So Elee researches ideas for lunch and she finds the Blue Heron Cheese Company less than a mile away and we go there for sandwiches, a cheese plate and wine tasting! So much better than the offerings at Tillamook!

Tummies satiated, we keep moving up the coast where we find Haystack Rock and stories of the Oregon Film Trail where numerous films were made! We stop at Indian Beach past Cannon Beach where offshore we get a glimpse of Tillamook Rock Lighthouse where some surfers are making use of some small wave sets.

We continue driving north to Fort Steven’s State Park where we find the wreck of the Peter Iredale. It is getting near sunset and we get some fun photos of the famous wreck. As we walk away, we watch the winds blow the shifting sands along the beach, explaining in part why this shipwreck is buried so deep!

We make it to Astoria just before sunset and we scout around for photo locations. With a couple tips from some locals, we locate a certain pier and make our cameras happy once again!

We did drive the bridge across the Columbia River in our search for sunset photo locations before settling on the Oregon side. Then we spot the “New England Fish Company of Oregon”! We choose the “Rogue Public House”, located on a pier that we actually drive out onto for dinner and drinks. Fun place and good food! But they had just reopened from the pandemic and the atmosphere was party paranoid, unfortunately.