In Oregon's dairy country

Rain, all day, coming out of buckets. Clouds hanging low, the ocean wild and gray and foamy, low visibility. Drove from Depoe Bay (harbor view from our room on left) 12 mi north to Lincoln City first, for a little shopping at the Outlet Mall there. Always good deals, though, we only bought sales items at Jockey and Under Armour this time.

Hwy. 101 continued through dense woods, some miles away from the coastline for the first portion. Had planned to drive the beautiful route to Cape Meares, but due to heavy rain stayed on 101, and, continued on to Blue Heron Cheese Co. and Tillamook Cheese Factory directly, with a stop at Fred Meyer's. Wanted to check out this market, which opened in Portland in 1922. We passed by this first store last weekend, and, now checked out the market's current assortment. "All under one roof" still is the motto: many different items, household, groceries, garden, hardware, clothing, etc. Today FM belongs to the Kroger supermarkets family.

Tillamook Creamery grew enormously since we first visited in the late 1990s. In 2018 they got a huge new Visitor Center/restaurant/shop (above) and are much more attractive now with a restaurant, a shop, exhibitions and a viewing area.

The Tillamook County Creamery Association is a farmer-owned co-op. About 80 farming families own the company and benefit directly from its growth and success. Henry Wilson is generally credited with bringing the first dairy cows into the Tillamook Valley in the early 1850s. Settlers experimented with cheese making, but only in 1894, when a Canadian immigrant by name Peter McIntosh took over, the cheese production began to develop and boom. By the turn of the century there were over three dozen cheese factories  in Tillamook County, in 1909 ten of them formed a co-operative association, which grew. 

We bought cheese, had an ice-cream and checked out their viewing area, films and exhibitions.

Via Garibaldi - besides being a fishing town, it operates a scenic railroad! - and Rockaway Beach, like the one in Queens/NY, we stopped at Cannon Beach before heading north towards Astoria. Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach is one of Oregon’s most recognizable landmarks, a basalt sea stack rising 235 ft high. Due to rain, we couldn't walk right up to it to look for sea stars and other tidepool creatures or watch for puffins or other birds.