Off to Harris Beach

Wednesday, July 4th (Harris Beach)

Today was the longest drive yet! Although we did make a lot of stops that made it seen longer that is actually was. Our first stop was Tillamook cheese factory. We didn’t spend very much time looking at the cheese making process because it was closed for the 4th. But we did take a look at all of the large vats that they make the actual cheese in. It wasn’t very exiting just looking at the outside of the vats. They had some TVs set up upstairs so you could see what the cheese making process looks like.

At the very beginning of the drive, there was a parade in the middle of the highway! But it was a pretty cool parade, lots of yellow. A little farther on, we almost hit a fawn! It was just standing there looking at us! We had to swerve into the other lane to ovoid it.

We enjoyed a pleasant lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches made with (you guessed it) Tillamook cheese. After that we had ice-cream. Mom had Peppermint Candy flavor in a Waffle “bowl”. Niall had Peppermint Candy flavor in a Waffle cone. And I had Root Beer flavor in a Waffle Cone.

Once we left Tillamook, it was just a lot of long driving until we stopped for a rest at a beach. We bought a kite at Fred Meyer near Tillamook, and this was a great beach to try flying it. It was really easy to get the kite up in the air, but harder to get it down. We wanted to stay and fly it all day, but had to get on the road so we could get to Harris Beach.

We finally arrived at the campground after 9 o’clock. Unfortunately, an unbelievably tight campsite awaited us: really narrow, with rock walls on either side and a narrow road in front to boot. Plus a water faucet and sink disposal to work around. It took quite a bit of jockeying to maneuver the popup into place, especially after such a long day. But eventually we got it into a reasonable spot, and then all went straight to bed. Cory fell asleep with his hands over his ears: the muffled booming of fireworks somewhere off the campground was not to his liking. For me, it was practically silent compared to our previous campsite next to the partiers. Heaven!

Less good was the discovery that our electric system doesn't work without hookups. Major bummer! Guessing it's the battery, because the frig was still quite cold after the day of driving and we'd switched that to electric before we left Nehalem. But anyway: no lights, no water, and especially, no hot water. So a full tank of water for nada. Sigh.