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.

 

Lighthouses, agates and fish

Heceta Head Lighthouse, halfway between Florence and Yachats on the Central Oregon Coast, is perched atop 1,000-foot-high Heceta Head, the lighthouse (1894) is the one you always remember after having  traveled the Oregon Coast. It is nowadays an automated beacon and rated as the strongest light on the coast. 

 

 

 

The assistant lightkeeper's house (photo on right, above), built in 1893, is operated as a Bed & Breakfast today, with six rooms and a highly recommendable 7-course breakfast, which we got to enjoy before an interpretive talk and a walk to the lighthouse itself. Unfortunately, weather wasn't too good, but, at least, it didn't rain (yet).

On from Heceta Head (pic on left) to Ten Mile Creek near Yachats, Oregon, walking the memory lane,,, Friends of us had operated a B&B from 1994 until around 2010, situated directly on this rocky, wild stretch of the oceanfront (in the background on the pic showing the two of us), and, we stayed there many times. Collected agates and watched elk, deer, birds and whales passing by. The house is still there, though it appears uninhabited. We were lucky, and, despite rain and a therefore only short hike along the rocky beach, we found a couple of (smaller) agates!  

In Newport, on the banks of Yaquina Bay, the seafood industry and fishing fleet still thrives today. It is one of the busiest ports in Oregon, dungeness crabs  one of the main products. The Bayfront is home to Oregon's largest commercial fishing fleet and to Pacific Coast Seafood
, which plays, from  humble beginnings in 1941, an important role in the community. It processes a wide variety of seafood species. and has become one of the largest producers of whiting fillets on the West Coast.  

 

Popular with visitors besides the Bayfront with its shops and restaurants: The Oregon Coast Aquarium - unique, but we've been there before - and famous Rogue Brewery, one of the pioneers in the craftbrewing industry, which grew enormously in the last decade and includes a distillery now. 

 

Driving through the "Deco District" towards Yaquina Bay State Park and Lighthouse then, passing by Agate Beach. The Yaquina Head Lighthouse, opened in 1873, is part of the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area, and offers trails, tide pools and Oregon's tallest lighthouse (93 ft.). One highlight there is the interpretive center with informative exhibitions on seabirds and marine life as well as human history from the headland.

 

It was pouring down in the meantime (pic above), and, we didn't stop too often anymore on our way north. Glad when we checked into the SCP Hotel in Depoe Bay - what a great place! " Soul Community Planet" is the motto of this small chain of hip, modern hotels. The idea was born out of a vision to help make the world a better place: thoughtfully designed, environmentally friendly, fairly-priced places - called "Holistic Hospitality". Our room offered a bathroom with a bathtub, a patio, a hammock seat and  other amenities. The "Great Room" for all guests was cozy with comfy seating, fireplace, yoga space with Peloton Bike, fridge, books and games. 

 

Grabbed some food and a beer in the Depoe Bay Brewery, only a 5-min walk from the hotel. Fish burger (left photo) and fried oysters were delicious!

This Sunday morning, we enjoyed a small breakfast and watched a Bald Eagle while doing so in the "World's Smallest Harbor", just in front of us in a quiet bay.

 

The ocean, dunes and spectacular nature: Coos Bay and Florence

What a wonderful place to stay! A cabin, or, rather a "tiny home" on the waterfront, at Coos Bay's Bay Point Landing, an RV ground with Airstreams to rent and cabins like ours:

Enjoyed the sunset, though it was ice-cold, around 20-25 deg F only, and, we, unfortunately, couldn't use the patio and didn't fire up the pit neither. But, we had a great dinner at 7 Devils Brewing Company, and, fortunately, met with the local tourism rep who helped us to create an interesting itinerary for the next day. 

 

Hated to leave our cabin on Friday morning, frosty again, but sunny. After check-out, we drove to Charleston, one of three communities in this area. While Coos Bay and North Bend are situated in the inlet, Charleston is oriented towards the Pacific and has to offer three State Parks in a row, one more dramatic than the other!

Cape Arago (3 photos above), Shore Acres and Sunset Bay State Parks are spectacular: dramatic reefs, rocks, wild woods, rough coasts, high waves, sea lions, birds, just gorgeous. One of our fav places in the world!

Simpson Reef (Cape Arago) - with Sea Lions below:

Sunset Point with Lighthouse above and below

Shore Acres Botanical Garden below:

After this absolutely unique experience, we drove back towards Coos Bay. Coos Bay has the largest deep-draft port between San Francisco and the Puget Sound in Washington State,  still a highly active harbor, especially for the lumber trade. Timber mills, mostly producing wood chips, are still to be seen. 

The city's highlight is the Coos History Museum, which opened in 2015. At our last visit we had a hard-hat tour through the construction site. Now: highly instructive exhibitions, which create a better understanding of life in Coos County and Oregon’s South Coast, past and present. In different sections it deals with the "Uplands" (Overland Travel, Mining, Logging & Lumbering and famous people), with  "Tidewater"(Shipbuilding, Potlach, Bounty from Waters) and  "Seashore" (Natural History, Geography, Flora & Fauna).

 

Another famous personality out of Coos Bay - as we learned in an exhibition at the Coos Art Museum - is Steve Prefontaine. On South Broadway this famous athlete, who we already "met" in Eugene, is immortalized in larger-than-life murals. He was the 1970s running sensation, spent his junior year at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and, ran the 5,000-meter race in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. A tragic car accident in 1975 stopped his promising career at the age of 24.

Yet from the city of Coos Bay it’s a short trip to the Southern Oregon Coastal Wilderness with the Oregon Dunes, also called Oregon's Adventure Coast. Long stretches of sandy beach and dunes are perfect for ATV adventures or "dune buggy rides". Done it, had it, quite an adventure! 

On to the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, in a stretch of towering sand dunes, also part of the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The Umpqua River Lighthouse at Winchester Bay towers over the beach where the Umpqua River empties into the Pacific. The 65-ft high lighthouse was constructed in 1890 after the first lighthouse collapsed in a storm.

 

 

 

 Later in the afternoon we explored Florence, a bit further south, with a nice historic riverfront and a scenic boardwalk, quaint little shops and cafés (photos on left and below). It was originally the winter home for the Siuslaw tribe. Later in the evening we had a wonderful dinner at one of the top restaurants in the Area: the Waterfront Depot. Had gorgeous braised lamb shank and Peter had shrimp-crusted halibut perfectly in harmony with a wonderful Oregon Pinot Noir before we retired,,,

 

Home of the Ducks and Track Town USA: Eugene

Eugene - Track Town USA. The long history of the sport of track running in Eugene, particularly at University of Oregon's Hayward Field, earned the city its nickname "Track Capital of the World". In 1895 the "Ducks" were founded as Oregon's first track and field team and they claim over 30 NCAA National Championships so far.

 

 

Most famous: Bill Bowerman (1911–1999), track and field coach and co-founder of Nike. The company was originally, in 1963, founded under the name "Blue Ribbon Sports" and is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon.  Bowerman and his former student Phil Knight worked on better shoes for runners and found them. In Hayward Field's museum there is a room showing their experiments and scientific approach (below).

Hayward Field is the newly built, modern, state-of-the-art track and field stadium on the campus of the University of Oregon, and, it'll soon be on every TV screen. It's the place where the World Athletics Championships Oregon 2022 in July will take place. We had a tour in the morning and besides the interesting exhibitions, the stadium itself is fantastic.

The Museum of Natural and Cultural History (pics above) was extended since we visited last time. It's a highly instructive exhibition about Oregon in all its facets: landscape, climate, ecosystems, history, flora and fauna, archeology and First Americans. Not too large and overwhelming, just the right size and the right mix of multimedia, relicts and replicas.

 

We left Eugene for Creswell around noon, located 13 miles (21 km) south. Destination: the Creswell Bakery, which was started in 2008 by a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, Heidi Tunnell. The bakery is in the meantime known across the country not just for its delicious breads, but also for its meatpies, filled pretzelrolls and hazelnut sticky buns (on the photos above).

Cottage Grove – our next stop - is a charming, historic little town a little further south, surrounded by waterfalls and wineries. First important stop: The Territorial Seed Company, a seed producer, where we, of course, had to get veggie seeds for the garden. Great selection! 

The town also is the site of movie scenes  from Buster Keaton's "The General" to present-day productions like "Animal House" or "Stand By Me". Murals all over the town (photo), as well as covered bridges. The most famous of them is the Chambers Railroad Covered Bridge, one of eight remaining in the nation (pic below). Build in 1925, it was  restored in 2011 —it is the tallest railroad covered bridge in existence today. A famous character from Cottage Grove was Opal  Whiteley (1897 – 1992), an American writer, who published a book in which she described her home state of Oregon and life in the mining camps. Her true origins continue to be questioned. 

It's been ice-cold all day, had to bundle up, but when we departed towards the Oregon Coast clouds slowly disappeared and there was some sun on our drive along the Umpquah Scenic Byway along the river and through the woods, with an amazing elk viewing point. Saw many of them, unfortunately more en route - with no chance to stop - than at the point itself.