It's the myth of the RV lifestyle. If you've ever seen an ad for an RV they show them in pristine natural settings with the family outside by the fire in the evening, no one else around for miles. Everyone is smiling and the kids are for once paying rapturous attention to their benevolent all-knowing parents. Or, if the picture is of the inside of the RV, the view through the windows is usually a mountain or a beach scene. The picture is obviously fake. They don't even try to make it look real. The reality of RV living is that you are usually parked in a narrow gravel lot, about 10 feet by 30, and you are looking at your neighbor's sewer pipe. Since most RVs are white the glare off of the sidewall of a large fifth wheel can be blinding.
So look upon this picture. It is a rarity, the RV lot that looks like the brochures. This is the sunset view from space C15 in Pacific City. We've never had better. I will admit to a little Photoshop type action here. I eliminated power lines. Hey, it's my fantasy life, too.
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| Dining al fresco. A little cool and breezy. |
On the way into town we passed the Tillamook Creamery. We were early enough that we were the first RVers there, but were quickly followed by a squadron more. By the time we left the parking lot was full. That's what free cheese samples will do.
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| Packaging cheese for retail sale |
The tour is self-guided, and there isn't much to it. You stand above the line and watch people do boring repetitive work. Soon you begin to wonder why humans are still doing parts of this, and you wonder why the guy packaging the 40 pound blocks of cheese has to walk the broken ones all the way back over to the other end of the line. But still, it's interesting to watch. And you learn how much milk it takes to make a pound of cheese (10 pounds, 1.6 gallons). Each vat hold 53,500 pounds of milk and makes 3 batches of cheese a day. That's 167,000 pounds of cheese a day. After learning that I didn't feel guilty abusing the free cheese samples. Neither did anyone else. I've perfected the triple spear technique, where you get 3 cheese cubes from one toothpick. Of course you never use the same toothpick twice, unlike the guy in front of me who slowed the line by savoring each sample like it was fine wine, then using the same toothpick for the next sample. I almost threw up on his shoe.
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| Cheese line at Tillamook |
Apropos of nothing, here's another cow for Gail
Here's a cute gimmick they came up with:
They have a small cafe, a store where you can buy all their cheeses, including those you never find anywhere else, and an ice cream stand. Cow Girl had to get ice cream, 2 scoops, no less (gotta have enough to share, right?) And just to remember the place by, an empty plastic 5 gallon ice cream bucket.
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| The cheese shop
Today we moved on down to South Beach. We're both getting very confused about where we are and where we've been. We move every day and the names are all similar. South Beach, Sea Side, Sea View, Pacific City. We're playing the "name" game with some of them. One place becomes known as "Blackwell", because we accidentally stayed in a spot reserved for the Blackwells, another is known as The Hot Dog Place, because they had a little tent set up selling hot dogs for the Fourth weekend. And so on. Part of this is because Thousand Trails, the membership camp site company, tends to give you a park address that is a little bit of a lie. The parks aren't always in the town they reference, they may be a little ways out of town, or in another, less well known town. It's confusing.
But also a part of this is road fatigue. We both need to park ourselves for awhile. I think we need a home.The South Beach campsite is called Whalers Rest Resort and it is one of the nicer ones, but while Wi-Fi is good, cell reception here is next to non-existent. It's frustrating never knowing what's going to be available at the next stop. We only have one more over-night campsite though, then we hit the road for a 3 or 4 day blast down the freeway to Flagstaff. It will be parking lot boondocking all the way. Then we settle for awhile at KC, our "home".
One of the reasons we're tired is that we feel like we're only going to be here once, so we'd better take advantage of what's here. Today the Oregon Coast Aquarium, billed as one of the nation's best, was the To Do list. Nice aquarium, but neither of us think it ranks as one of the best. Its claim to fame, I think, is the underwater tunnel, where the sharks roam overhead. You can book a night here: sleep under the sharks. Sleep well! I would dream of leaks.
   
Back at the ranch Captain Courageous asked about crabbing. You can rent the baskets if you want to go out and find them yourself. When The Captain found out how you crabbed, and realized that crabs didn't just walk up to you on the beach, that you had to physically touch them and take them out of the wire basket that you use to catch them, she lost all interest. "I'll order them on the menu. You can pay for them", she said.
(Captions seemed to have stopped working on the photos. The fish right above is a Wolf Eel. Above that is a jelly fish and the fish above that I think is a Rock Fish. Every fish in the aquarium that isn't a shark or a skate seems to be some kind of Rock Fish.)
Almost an afterthought: The coastline scenery is magnificent. It's sort of California, sort of Maine. One town even recommends that you consider visiting in the winter, because the storms are something to see. One of the places we passed was named by Captain Cook Cape Foul Weather. He was there on a particularly nasty day. The winds can reach 100 mph in stormy weather. Another thing I commend Oregon for is the way they make access to the public beaches very easy. In Pacific City there is a very popular beach with a huge rock called The Haystack. Dorys launch from here. A huge sand dune invites snow boarders, or "sand" boarders to ride down it. The parking lot is large and free. Any other town or state would charge at least $5 to park here. I may not like the gas-pump feather bedding, but the Democratic Republic of Oregon has done this right.
The Haystack
A dory. They have a rich history here, and "Dory Days" are celebrated.
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