Oregon or Bust!

Days, 28, 29, 30, to Infinity and Beyond!

Getting to drop in on old friends and family is one of the benefits of traveling around. In our case, since we carry our house on our backs, it is harder to wear out our welcome!       

          Most of the time.

          There are other times when we visit someone who genuinely is happy that we’ve dropped in and seems to be 😊 unhappy when we are planning to leave.

          The Test of this hypothesis comes today.

          We are here in Pacific City on the Oregon Coast. Please don’t let the nomenclature lead you astray. Pacific City is no more a city than a “Jumbo” shrimp is a large creature! Pacific City does not even have one traffic light, but it does possess a stop sign or two. It also possesses an abundance of coastal beatitudes that will soon be apparent to you in the accompanying photographs.

          Back to our stay at Liz’s home, or as we have named it, The Fuzzy Dog B&B. Yes, there are fuzzy dogs here. They clamor for our attention and love to sit on our laps, snuggle in, and fall asleep. It’s a good thing that these fuzzy dogs, Adelaide and Jackson, are true lap dogs and not Great Danes who think that they are lapdogs!

          Anyway, Liz and I have known each other for about forty years. She started at Ritter Food shortly after I did and has just retired from Sysco in Portland where she was the company President. Most of her time was spent at Sysco in New Jersey where she was responsible for just about everything in her preparation to be a Sysco President. That meant that we still got to see each other at any number of Sysco sponsored customer events over the years.

          This visit is only one of a few that have required us at park Miss Biggie somewhere else in order to visit with someone. There was no way that she would have fit in the driveway of either home that Liz owns out here in Oregon. So, Liz made provisions for The Motorhome to be safely confined behind the big guardian gates of Sysco in Portland. Our only problem with this arrangement is that she would be stationary for a spell and not connected to any power source, which would be fine except for our refrigerator, which for obvious reasons needed to still be kept running.

          The solution to this dilemma, other than having the generator run constantly for our entire stay, was to remove said groceries, and deposit them in a handy extra refrigerator that Liz has in her Portland home.

          Done! Now we can shut everything down and not have to obsess (that’s me) over the state of the motorhome if we had to have kept things running. Which leads me to the next issue here in the Northwest.

          Weather.

          It is either glorious or godforsaken.

          And we have experienced both.

          So, as I write this we are contemplating extending our stay here at the Fuzzy Dog B&B. Liz, and her friend Beth, have made us feel quite welcome and the places that we are planning to visit after we leave here have less-than-perfect weather prognostications attached to them. Our immediate destination will probably be Olympic National Park, located on the Olympic Peninsula, northwest of Seattle. It seems as if the next few days will not be conducive to a pleasurable visit up there. We are also planning to take a Whale Watch out and hopefully score some Orca views, which really needs good weather!

          One of the things that we did not consider when we were planning this Coast-to-Coast foray, were the Seasons. We did plan to be in this Region by late April or early May, so we did succeed in that department. Where we failed miserably was in our lack of knowledge about how long Spring takes to be sprung at these latitudes (and elevations).  They’re still coming out of Winter in many of these National Parks, which makes visits to them far less than ideal.

          So, our stay here in Pacific City may be extended. Better to be here among friends (who truly don’t mind) than sitting in a campground waiting for the weather to clear up.

          We have taken advantage of some spurts of sunshine that make their appearance between the bouts of clouds and rain, to have Liz show us some great spots here that are a bit off the beaten path. Oregon has been forward-thinking when it comes to how they treat their coastline and forests. Both of these natural wonders out here are used and not abused by the locals. Our hikes around were most pleasurable and it is obvious why folks that visit Oregon come away proselytizing the beauty and attributes of this area.

          One of our class trips involved a visit to Tillamook Cheese Company located coincidently in the town of Tillamook. You may recognize this company as their products are available nationwide. Tillamook is a dairy cooperative, much the same as Cabot is in Vermont. Their popularity is legendary out here and was quite obvious when we paid them a visit. They desperately needed to expand their Store and Visitor Center which now is nothing short of impressive. In there you can watch the production of cheese from start to finish with the accompanying educational information that explains each step along the way.

          Technical,……..  yes.

          Fascinating, …… yes

          Boring, ……… No!

          Mostly because the subject matter is presented nicely, but also because you get three free samples at the end of the tour! These were spontaneously devoured and then replaced by their big brothers from the retail department!

          We then had lunch in their open and airy foodservice dining area located in the same building. As you may imagine, their fare is based around……  Cheese! We had some Tomato Basil soup that had cheese curds used in it much like you would use a crouton. There was also a Grilled Cheese sandwich that found its way onto our tray, one that any kid (or me) would be proud to devour. After lunch we walked to the opposite side of the room to partake in the other products that come from dairy cooperatives….. Ice Cream!

          Yes folks, Tillamook Dairies produce some fine, high quality, premium, ice cream. I know this because I had some. I also know this because I’ve partaken of this dairy delectable from some of the best creameries around, Penn State Creamery, Ben and Jerry’s, and of course, our hometown favorite, Bluebell in Brenham, Texas. Tillamook is right up there in the good company of the others.

          Most of our other activities have been interspersed with great meals, a pool tournament (in which we were handily dispatched) and numerous expeditions to forest highlands and beach headlands. There is even a stretch of beach here that you may drive your appropriately licensed vehicle on, especially at low tide when the beach ends up being several hundred yards wide, and Liz has a really cool Jeep Wrangler that is kept here specifically for this purpose.

After our Jeep Junket we partook of the local breweries version of some delicious Fish ‘n Chips and I had a “growler” of their home-grown Root beer…… Accolades all around!

          Updates to follow as the final “Where’s Waldo” decision has yet to be made…… But, there is still plenty to experience here on the incomparable Oregon Coast!