Day 56 – Oregon Coast Aquarium and Tillamook Cheese

Today was a double-decker day.  We started out at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, OR (15 miles north of our campground in Waldport).  This was a pricey little touristy stop, but we haven’t had one in a while.  They had a great kids’ exhibit “The Sea and Me.”  This was better for Carmen than Audra, but they both enjoyed it.  They fished and took their fish to market, they saw “Dori” (actually we found a Purple Tang, but not a blue one), they petted sting-rays, and Carmen and I let a cleaner shrimp crawl on and pick at our hands.  Eeeww.  It tickled.  Audra wouldn’t do it.  In the regular exhibit area we touched anemones (sticky tentacles) and several kinds of sea stars (some hard, some soft).  We watched the sea otters being fed.  We found a giant Pacific octopus.  He was all curled up in a dark corner – hard to see.  I loved the sea lions and seals.  They are so funny swimming upside down.  I could have watched them for hours.  There was a “Places in the Deep” aquarium tunnel you could walk through with fish and sharks swimming all around you.  There was also a bird aviary that we did not visit.  ?  I think that was all – oh the jellyfish – which I could also watch for hours.  So fascinating – beautiful and ominous at the same time.

Part two of our day came after we settled in at a new campground (Pleasant Valley RV Park – it is extremely pleasant!  Lots of grass and shade, nice laundry and showers, it’s warm here too!).  We headed on in to Tillamook to find the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  There used to be a tour of the factory, but they had to stop for health compliance regulations.  I would have loved to see the whole thing in action.  As it was, we got to look through some windows at parts of the production line, but they were only running the day shift and we were there after 6:00.  We might stop in tomorrow.  Anyway, we got to sample the cheese and buy some too!  And the ice cream.  They also make that.  After we finished our cheesy sandwiches we each got double-decker ice cream cones.  Quite the splurge, but it was probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had.  And I’m a Blue Bell girl!

It seems like we are doing a lot right now.  I guess we are, but we are not too worn out.  It is very different though from sitting in a meadow on the bank of a river for 6 hours.  Tomorrow we are heading to Fort Stevens State Park in Astoria, OR for a couple of nights.  Then we will be going to WA and back to a couple of national parks.  We are missing the hiking and astounding beauty of those parks, although the Oregon coast is beautiful.

Aquarium and Cheese