Day 2 Tillamook to Newport

Travel Date: 7 April 2024

Two minutes after checking out and I already miss our New England-style cottage in Cannon Beach. I think of that fluffy white duvet and snuggly bed as we drive northward the few blocks on S Hemlock St to the Pig ‘N Pancake just past Washington St. I am knocked out of my reverie as we enter into the restaurant’s waiting area. I whisper to Tessa, “Is this a restaurant or a gift shop?” There are T-shirts and baseball caps on the walls, all kinds of tchotchke for sale on shelves and counter tops, and a standing floor rack filled with tourist calendars full of pictures from the area.

For some reason, all the merch, and the 1990’s decor, reminds me when I was 10 years old and at a theme park shop or something. I was overwhelmed with all that was for sale. Creating pressure to buy some trinket to remind me of my visit. The feeling fades when the hostess returns to seat us.

We are seated near a rustic fireplace. The 1990’s-themed interior design continues from the gift shop into the dining area. Tessa orders the Sand Dollar Pancakes. I order the Benedict with breakfast potatoes. When our food arrives, Tessa’s eyes enlarge as she beholds those deliciously large sand dollars and grasps how many ten is (a lot!). They fully cover the plate. After digging in, she’s proclaims their tastiness, though! Unfortunately, my egg yolks are overdone and hard (I like ’em runny), but the rest of the meal is fab.

Tessa finishes half her plate, I finish most of mine, and we declare ourselves stuffed. We pay our bill at the register in the “gift shop,” and bid our adieu to the favorite breakfast spot of Cannon Beach. We wave goodbye once we are on U.S. 101 and driving south.

The highway goes in and our of trees, and then travels along the cost for a while. Viewpoints abound. We stop at a couple of pull outs along the road: Arch Cape, Neahkahnie Point, etc. I am very glad that Tessa is driving and not me. I would most likely crash the car. My eyes would be glued to the surreal beauty of this rocky coast and the waves that crash upon those rocks instead of watching the road as I should.

About an hour and a half later, north of Tillamook city proper, we see the Tillamook Creamery from the highway. Tessa turns the car into the driveway. The muddy parking lot has many more cars than I would expect. There is a carnival air in the space between the parking lot and the large modern building across the way. Multitudes of people enter and exit the visitor center next to the processing plant. I am lucky enough to hold the people back while I take a picture of the giant cow staring down at those of us about to enter.

There are hundreds of people inside the building. My inner 10 year old rises again as the crowds trigger my memories of Disneyland. It floods my senses. There is a food court-type area to the left and a gift shop bigger than most in Disneyland, to the right. Between them: the tour center. There are guided tours with a cheese tasting afterward (highly recommended), or not. Many visitors are just going upstairs to the viewing area, reading the information displays and watching the production floor through various walls of windows. A highlight of the tour (besides the cheese tasting) is the “Blue Octopus” packaging machine.

After our cheese tidbits, ice cream, and a bit of meandering through the gift shop, we are heading south on US. 101 again. Soon we enter the rural town of Tillamook and then take a right onto Washington SR 131 – the Netarts Hwy – towards our next stop of the day: Cape Meares Lighthouse.

We follow SR 131 southwest then it turns north through Netarts. We continue driving north to Oceanside and notice parasailers as we stay to the right onto Cape Meares Loop. Somewhere along the way, the road becomes Bayshore Dr. We stay northbound on Bayshore Drive until we see a sharp right turn in the road and a trailhead parking area on the left. We turn left (west) onto Cape Meares Lighthouse Dr. as it goes west from the trailhead parking area and Bayshore Drive heads east. We drive on Cape Meares Lighthouse Dr. about a 1/2 mile (800 meters) to the parking lot. An artsy “Kiosk” welcomes us to Cape Meares. The trail to the right of the kiosk leads us to the Lighthouse. 

There are trails and viewpoints all over the Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint area. We are not able to take advantage of all the hiking, but on the return to the parking lot we find a trail that drops down on the south side of the main trail. It offers southward views down the Oregon rocky coast. The trail also runs by the Octopus tree, a Sitka spruce with branches like giant tentacles.

On our way back through Oceanside, we decide to go to the beach and turn right at the Netarts Oceanside Hwy junction. Parking for the beach is on the left just past the post office. We watch the parasailers fly on the wind around Maxwell Point and then land on Oceanside Beach. With its strong breeze, Oceanside Beach is a popular parasailing and parasailing viewing area.

After a half-hour or so of watching the parasailers lazily doing circles above the surf and witnessing a few landings on the beach, we head back to U.S. 101 and continue south to the Tillamook airport. We begin looking for a large blimp hangar that is home to the Tillamook Air Museum. 

We see the blimp hangar at about 10 o’clock, right before the Long Prairie Rd intersection. An airport sign on the across the intersection on the left, has several white boxes with the names of businesses in them. In blue letters, the word “Museum” is in one of those boxes. So, we turn left, the blimb hangar clearly visible across the fields. A right on Blimp Rd, another right onto Hangar B Road, violá, the mini guppy aircraft with “Tillomook Air Museum” emblazoned on its side welcomes us. 

The airport was home to several blimp hangars, but hangar B is the only one that remains. Skeletons of other hangars’ supports for huge doors are dotted around the area – all that remains of those that housed the blimp force.

 

We can hear water dripping in the cavernous hangar, which used to store WWII blimps. Several, mostly military, aircraft are scattered in the dim light. An F-14, an F-4 cockpit, an A-7, and the list goes on. Tessa jumps into the cockpit of the F-14 Tomcat and flashes a big smile. Surprisingly, almost all the aircraft tires in the museum were inflated. I buy a coffee mug in the gift shop, and we then head off towards Newport.

On the way, we pass through Lincoln City and a store called “Prehistoric.” It has the skeleton of a Velociraptor on its sign. We stop, and I have never seen so many fossils and fossil-related items before. All for sale. Well, except for the stuffed water buffalo in the center of the store. Large-sized slabs of fossilized sea bottom with trilobites and ammonites embedded—infinite quantities of megalodon teeth, woolly mammoth hair, and other ancient animal parts – all for sale.

After purchasing a 10-million-year-old Megalodon tooth, we drove down to Otter Rock, a little town about 8 miles north of Newport. We followed the signs from U.S .101 to the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

Otter Rock surrounds the Devil’s Punch Bowl, a large, bowl-shaped rock formation jutting out from the cliffs. Otter Rock beaches are popular with surfers. Quality waves, duuude.

First Avenue leads up to the Punch Bowl area up on the high spur with an observation area above the large rock formation that is Devil’s Punch Bowl. I have hiked in Mt. Rainier National Park, and some of the backcountry campsites have old outhouses for use as toilets. For a seat, the outhouses use a couple of wood planks nailed together with a big hole cut out. As beautiful as the Devil’s Punch Bowl is, it reminds me of those seat boards from those old outhouses. Except, bigger. much, much bigger.

When we arrive, the wind cuts right through any warmth we had in the car. First Avenue up there holds Pura Vida Surf Shop, Cliffside Coffee and Sweets (coffee definitely needed this stormy afternoon, the ice cream, not so much), and Mo’s Seafood and Chowder at the end of the road. Visiting the shops provides us a respite from the horizontal rain and icy wind. We end up at Mo’s for their fabulous chowder served in a sourdough bowl and killer fish tacos. They also sell fun hoodies with surfboards and the name “Mo’s” emblazoned on the front and back. It all made for an excellent late lunch of comfort as we bought a chowder bowl and tacos to share, and I purchased a pink tie-dyed hoodie for me.

I felt at home in Mo’s because it reminded me of the seafood shacks in Huntington Beach, California, near where I grew up.

We head south again, with the desire to hit the Yaquina Head Lighthouse. The route to the Lighthouse is simple. A right turn off the Oregon Coast Highway (U.S. 101) onto NW Lighthouse Drive and we follow the road until we are at the fee station to the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. The fee is $7 per car for a 3-day pass, or free with our U.S. National Parks Annual Pass. Pedestrians and cyclists always enter for free. After flashing our Parks Pass to the ranger in the kiosk, we continue to the lighthouse parking lot at the end of the street. We exit the vehicle and wander around the area. We are rewarded with views of rock formations, cliffs, and beaches surrounding the spit on which the lighthouse sits. The rain ceases, and while it is still windy, the hand of nature is not shoving me like when we were at the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

The paths up to the lighthouse are idyllic, with tall grass growing on each side of the well-groomed paths, and the tallest lighthouse along the Oregon coast standing against the ocean wind and sky. Unfortunately, it is closed when we arrive, so we can’t climb the stairs to the top. We stand outside the locked “front door” and look up at the white-washed brick cylinder with the windows up the side. I wonder when it was last painted or cleaned. The bright white felt recent. Then I wonder what it took to build: masons placing bricks with precision so the wall stands at the correct angle to hold the cylinder strong against the storms, with the window openings remaining straight and aligned. All this work was performed a century and a half ago. Color me impressed.

On the way up to the lighthouse parking, we saw a sign that urged us to turn right and visit the Interpretive Center. On our way back down from the point, we decide to turn left and stop by the interpretive center. It is worthwhile, full of interesting displays on lighthouse history and sea creatures, including a real Grey Whale vertebrae.

After getting our fill of lighthouse physics, history, and sea creature biology, we leave the Outstanding Natural Area and drive to our motel room at the Hallmark Resort Newport.  Our room is clean, modern, and well-maintained, but lacks the charm of the old cabins at Cannon Beach. The view through the sliding glass door and the private deck almost make up for the room’s lack of character. The Beach expands below us as we trace the stairs that lead down to the beach from the motel’s cliff-top perch.

After a quick “wow” viewing the ocean, we unpack the car and take turns showering, which is faster than if we showered at the same time. We hurry to get dressed and put on makeup so we are punctual for our dinner reservation at the Clearwater, a restaurant nestled amongst other restaurants and shops in the Newport Historic Bayfront. 

The Clearwater has two floors. The main floor appears to be more of the bar area. We are seated on the second floor, next to the windows overlooking the waterfront and a floating platform where a bevy of sea lions bark as they lie lazily in the marina.

With the early-2000s ocean-theme decor, I am transported back to high school with memories of dates with nervous boys at restaurants that felt way too fancy for our age, but really were just customary places for adults without children. I enjoy that I am now one of those adults without children, slurping down appetizers of regional oysters on the half-shell. Not long after we finish the delectable bivalves, our main courses arrive. Seared scallops the size of silver dollars, served over a green pea risotto with a blood-orange balsamic glaze for me, while Tessa enjoys the “fish of the day”: rockfish served with a lemon cream sauce, herb gnocchi, spinach, and sundried tomato. Both plates are perfectly paired with a dry Elk Cove Pinot Gris.

Over dinner, Tessa tells me she wants to go dune buggy riding when we are in Florence. I am not so sure I want to participate. Memories of scary dune rides when I was much younger haunt me. She says it’ll be fun, but I am resistant, using our timeline as an excuse for us not spending a couple of hours in the dune sands of Oregon. I finally agree to think about it. It is clear she really wants to do donuts in a dune buggy; the more adventurous of the two of us, she is.

After a fulfilling evening of food, wine, and sea lions, we return to our motel room and collapse on our comfortable (although not as comfortable as the McBee cabin in Cannon Beach) bed. I immediately start slipping into sleep, exhausted from the day’s touristing. Tessa gives me a loving kiss on the lips. I dream of tomorrow’s adventure: Nye Beach for Breakfast, Rogue Brewery for lunch, Heceta Head Lighthouse, and then Dune buggy riding. Or not? I drift off while imaging rolling down a dune face.