Note: My kids (Dennis is included as “kid” in this instance) insisted we say “cut the cheese”

We’ve learned to be more flexible, and that includes chasing good weather/running from bad.  After our “luxury” stay in Portland, we looked at the weather and realized we’d have a few days of rain..but just 2 hours away on the coast it was much nicer.  Plus, we had been hoping to visit the town of Tillamook anyway.  So, we packed up and rolled out, making a quick pit stop at a winery for a tasting on the way.

We stayed the night in another Harvest Host location, the Blue Heron French Cheese company.  Again, Maya was thrilled to see lots of animals for petting — chickens, peacocks, goats and llamas.  But a new feature was a field full of vintage farm equipment and heavy vehicles.  We had a calm night in the back of their parking lot, and the next morning got hot breakfast sandwiches from the grill.  We sampled some of their brie and got some herb brie and fresh french bread for dinner that night. 

Then, we went about a mile down the road for the “big” cheese factory tour at Tillamook.  After our stays at smaller farms and Blue Heron, we were not prepared for what a full-scale tourist operation Tillamook is.  They have about 5 deep parking lots, with a huge RV area, for example.  And people are streaming in and out of the front door.  But, once we got inside we realized why…the visitor center had been redone in 2018 and was really cool.  We took a self guided tour and looked down from second story windows onto the cheddar making, slicing and packaging lines.  My crew made a lot of cheese cutting jokes, such as this gem:   “wow it must really smell bad in there with all those people cutting the cheese.”  

After the tour, they lead you right into…a gift shop!!!! Big surprise, right?  Of course we got some cheese, and then we went immediately to the ice cream line where I declared it an “ice cream for lunch” day.  No objections were heard.