Say Cheese!!

7/21 Day 10 - Today we woke up to a soaking wet tent. This is annoying because you really shouldn't put your tent away wet so we always try to dry it out as much as possible. We weren't really in any hurry and I still felt like crap so it wasn't a big deal, but it's still annoying. On the bright side the weather report said it wasn't going to rain today and our route was taking us right by the Tillamook Cheese Factory! :] yay!

We left Nehalem Bay State Park and the sun was shining. It was a welcome break from the gloom of yesterday.
The going was good and pretty flat, which was awesome considering we had to bike up a mountain yesterday. We passed through a couple small towns that had lots of cool houses right on the ocean. We stopped in Rockaway Beach, bought a gatorade and ate some granola bars by the beach. There was a pretty cool sea stack off the coast to look at. After that we had our sights set on Tillamook.

On our way there we passed through more beach towns and got some pretty cool views of Tillamook Bay and the ocean. When we got there we were very surprised at the number of people visiting this cheese factory. It was so weird and it felt like an amusement park. Anyway, we got to the entrance and noticed they were giving out ice cream samples. Naturally we got in line. It was delicious! After that we went inside and it was a zoo of people trying to buy ice cream in every flavor and big chunks of cheese. We went to the cheese sampling area first. They let you try a bunch of different kinds and I liked them all. After that we went up to the factory viewing area. You got to watch workers separate blocks of cheese and push them down a conveyor belt to be packaged. It was interesting for about 1 minute. On the other side you could watch them boiling cheese, but they weren't doing anything at the time. We did watch very large chunks of cheese get packaged which was a little more entertaining. We went back down to get more samples pretty quickly. They had a new one this time too.... Garlic white cheddar. I'm in love. It's the best cheese. Ethan wouldn't let me buy any though. That's probably for the best.

After the cheese factory it was time to get groceries so we went to the Fred Meyer grocery store. I guess it's affiliated with Kroger, which I never knew. We both thought it was funny because Frederick Meijer founded Meijer. :] Anyway, it was the biggest grocery store we'd been to yet so we stocked up on granola bars and pop tarts. We also got food for dinner, some more "propane" (I'm not really sure what it is but that's what I call it), & electrical tape to fix my handle bar padding.

After that we needed lunch so we got Subway. Once we had eaten it was time to get going. Ethan wanted to take the scenic route (which added 9 extra miles to our trip) along the coast. I was worried I would be too tired to add that many miles, but we didn't know how hilly HWY 101 was so we decided on the scenic route. The first 1/2 was great. It was into the wind, but it was flat. The second 1/2 was terrible. It was uphill forever. I was not happy because I felt like crap and so tired from riding all day.

When we finally got to the top I took off down the other side. Ethan had wanted to stop and check out the view from the bluffs, but I didn't realize it. This turned into an argument that we both realized 10 minutes later was really dumb. :-/ But we apologized and kept going. We went through Oceanside (where rich people have cool houses) and up another stupid hill. Then it was only 7 miles til the campground.

We got in with plenty of time to make dinner, eat and for me to shower. We watched the sunset, while drinking hot chocolate and eating chips ahoy. It was a relaxing way to end a long day. Time for bed! 56 miles tomorrow.