See? It's gorgeous! Although this weather didn't happen until Wednesday...so we drove to Tillamook to tour the
Tillamook Cheese Factory! Hartwell and Beckett with their cousins:
The Cheese Factory offers self guided tours to see the cheese making process. If you look at the bottom of the pic, you can see giant loafs of cheese...Bee is only pretending to be interested because he didn't want his picture taken. The other three are waiting to get their promised ice cream cones. Also? Thanks, Tillamook Cheese Factory, for putting your ice cream shop next to the entrance AND for making fresh waffle cones...if they hadn't seen the shop, they would've smelled it...
Time to sample the cheese! All delicious! Though there was a garlic and spicy pepper flavor that kept going...
As complicated as Beckett is, he always wants vanilla.
On the way home, my mom wanted to check out one of the many lighthouses that dot the coast. Unfortunately, the road that led to the parking lot, which led to the path to the lighthouse was closed. But since we drove there and parked, we hiked over to a giant spruce. Or The Giant Spruce. If only the photographers had known to show the whole width of the tree...if you look in the upper right hand corner, you can see a bit of light. Beckett was feeling anti-camera, again, and decided to skip out. I think he may have been Sitting Bull in his other life.
After the hike, we were muddy and complain-ie so we drove back. Stopping at one of the many coffee huts on the roadside for espresso. I want to marry them.
The next day, we headed into Seaside to see the
Seaside Aquarium. We got to feed the seals! For $1 you get a tray of halved sardines and you can toss them to the seals. We bought 12. It was that fun. It was really hard to photograph. The sign reads, "Please keep hands behind fence - seals will bite." Yikes. They also clap for sardines in a way that makes you want to keep one.
Here's a shot from the other end behind some plexiglass. That giant seal is laying on the rock all sexy to get some sardines.
The aquarium is actually kind of small, but that's what made it so amazing. There was an octopus in a tank which had no lid. And seastars to hold! Hartwell is usually pretty timid about animals, so I was shocked that he picked one up!
There were some people next to him at the seastar tank and they must have mentioned going to feed the seals because he cupped his mouth and yelled out to them, "Watch out for the heads! They're creepy!" Meaning the sardine heads, of course.
After that we decided to get lunch and walk around town. For some reason this reminds me of an album cover...
Lewis and Clark statue, a must pose...
There was a store that promised "free photos with a great white shark." the kids ran in, of course, and we learned it was a sales office for time shares! Yay! Still got this photo, without having to hear a word:
I think this shark just ate a nerf ball. He's got some foam in his mouth.
And no trip to Seaside would be complete without bumper cars!
The next day we knew was going to be gorgeous! So we decided to try our hand at crabbing. Here are the kids at
Jetty Fishery at Nehalem Bay.
You can rent a boat or just rent some crab rings and use their dock. And they will cook whatever you catch. We rented 4 crab rings. And I got my Oregon Shellfish License! Never thought I'd type those words!
Our first try we caught a bunch of crabs! Yay! But they were all too small or females. Boo!
John tossing the crab ring out to sea:
Some harbor seals lounging across the way from us. I called them Seal Team Five. That's 16x zoom, so it's not a great photo.
Dad and Bee pulling in the crab ring...
Still pulling...
Crab! (Crabs?) Whatever! Lots of delicious looking crab! Also too small or female. There's one escaping:
We ended up catching almost 200 crabs. Of which we got to eat zero. Sad face emoticon.
It was a really lovely day, though, and we all had a lot of fun. A few days later, on a trolley ride in Astoria, we would find out it's the end of crab season and "only small ones are comin' in." Awww...man...
If you're not sick of my vacation, there's more here:
Oregon: Part Four: Hugs and Voodoo
