July 23: Say Cheeeeese

July 23, 2013

I love the game Daddy plays with my rat.  He works some magic and makes it fly, so I really have fun chasing it.  I can jump from the bottom of the stairs all the way to the far end of the bed.  And sometimes, I can even stop myself before I slide over the edge!  I gotta work on that...

This morning, we took a hike right out of the RV park along a little creek.  The trail was soft from eons of decomposing forest matter.  We did not see any wildlife, but people have seen otters, beavers, bear, deer and elk here.  It took us by a huge spruce tree (10 feet in diameter).  There are still wildflowers popping up all over. 

When we finished the hike, we went into the RV garden and picked some fresh blueberries, raspberries and blackberries for breakfast.  They have a huge garden here and as a guest, you are welcome to the bounty.  It was hard refraining from being a total hog!  But we were good kids.  I gave Crew one of my fresh, juicy, sweet raspberries, and he totally disliked it.  He has the most boring palate on the planet!

We readied Hannah for departure heading south on the 101.  If I am not right on it, Spouse would miss every turn.  I have to tell him go right, go left, go straight even though there may be signs yelling 'Spouse, go right!'  I am never quite sure what his brain absorbs!

But south we head on 101 through water inlets, logging operations, forests, fishing towns and all in all, some very pretty scenery.  We picked up some fresh salmon caught by trolling.  Supposedly, it is better than net caught.  But fresh and wild will be better any day any way!

We cross over the Columbia River into Oregon.  The obligatory stop at Taco Bell to quiet the nephew is done, as is a stop at Petco to buy Rudy some food.   South we continue to the town of Tillamook.  You see, Spouse saw the cheese factory  here 2 years ago when we went by and was sorry that we didn't go in.  So, we set up Hannah in an RV park across the street, and walked over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  

There is a whole lot on the making of cheese, and you can watch them cutting, weighing and stuff like that.  Then you can eat... and all of it is bad for you:  ice cream, cheese (duh), fudge...  Even I indulged in a malt.  Then of course, I sampled some of the cheese.  With Spouse finally satisfied after two years of longing for the cheese factory, we headed back to Hannah.  I hope the ice cream did not ruin our salmon dinner...

By the way, Spouse went out of his way to pack fishing equipment.  But he is too cheap to buy a fishing license anywhere.  So instead, he hooked Rudy's stuffed rat to the line and casts it across Hannah.  Rudy is fast and loves to leap and fly after it.  At least  we can say that Spouse had some good catches on this trip!