On a driving day, we start out by figuring out how far we are driving to our next campsite. Today it was estimated at about 100 miles and 2 hours. We left South Beach at 10 AM and arrived at Nehalem Bay State Park at 5 PM. It turns out there is a lot of good stuff to experience in 100 miles, and we took our darn sweet time doing just that.
Our first stop was Pelican Brewing for lunch and a beer sampling. After Rogue Brewing, it was hard to compete. Pelican’s beers weren’t bad, they just weren’t as epic as what we had at Rogue yesterday. Shawn had an elk burger with goat cheese and I had a smoked salmon Caesar salad.
Next stop was the Latimer Quilt & Textile Center. They were having a showing of quilts with the theme of green and/or recycling by local quilt artists. While I was admiring the quilts, Shawn wandered into the weaving room and struck up a conversation with Shirley the resident weaving instructor. She explained how the looms worked and gave us a demonstration. We also got a few stories about her mother’s aunt in Sweden who was also a weaver. Shawn is ready to embark on a new weaving hobby…I’m just waiting for Amazon to deliver the loom.
While planning our trip, we were really excited about seeing the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Unfortunately, they are in the process of building a new visitors’ center, so we did not get a tour. The tasting room, gift shop and creamery were open. As you’ve read, we’ve experienced some pretty awesome cheese, so Tillamook was a bit of a letdown. We actually left without buying anything…well, we did have a scoop of ice cream.
Steve the Dinosaur likes ice cream too
Our final stop was DeGarde Brewing. They brew “wild” meaning they do not add laboratory produced yeast for fermentation. The wort is cooled naturally and takes in the Tillamook yeast and microflora from the air. Then the beer is aged in oak barrels to finish the fermenting. We tried some interesting brews, most of them being sours. One actually had an aroma of cow poo (not my fav). They had a 2-bottle limit on one of their new releases and numerous people approached us asking if we would buy them 2 bottles if we weren’t getting any. The guy we ended up buying for invited us to his new Vietnamese street food truck opening in Portland next week. He isn’t fully permitted yet, but he said he would make us a full lunch if we looked him up.
There was some construction on 101, so Google routed us through some beautiful farmland. Lush green valleys backing up to hills of conifers. Many of the barns have 8-foot square wooden quilt blocks on them. This is a tradition started in the Midwest called the Quilt Barn Trail. I looked up 10+ acre properties for sale on Zillow, and it turns out we will not be retiring in Tillamook County on our government pension.
Nehalem Bay State Park is on the ocean. The spots are not quite as big as they were in South Beach, so it was a bit challenging parking the RV. I was busy watching the trees on the side and missed the branch overhanging the space. A bit of plastic on the top of the RV died today. After seven days of sunshine, we are experiencing our first rain. Woohoo, I get to wear my new raincoat tomorrow!
Daily Ratings & Stats
Pelican Brewing – 3 stars
Latimer Quilt & Textile Center – 4 stars
Tillamook Cheese Factory – 3 stars
DeGarde Brewing – 3 stars
Miles driven – 100 (in 7 hours)
Steps taken – 3,510