David said the breakfast service in the cafe next to the hotel was slow while Paul took another hike down to the beach (isn't he small!) I preferred the whole lie-in scenario. Once on the bus, we headed back onto the Oregon Coast Highway. We passed through the town of Depoe, which is home of the world's smallest harbour.
We would be making three Cape stops today - Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman. Okay, not those capes, I'll explain as we go. In the meantime, we passed through Lincoln City, Oregon, which is home to the shortest river in the world at just 440 feet long, the D River. We were only about fifty miles west of Salem, the capital city of Oregon and, in crossing the 45th Parallel we were about half way between the equator and the North Pole, give or take a few miles. At least, this is what Jose told us. He might have made it up (although Wikipedia generally agrees with him, I checked!)
We arrived at our first Cape of the day, Cape Kiwanda. We had a half hour stop here, but there wasn't much to see. We looked at the surfers on the beach, Haystack Rock and we checked out the local market store.
The next stop was Cape Lookout. Another beach (the weather wasn't that great) but this time there were a few rock pools, with crabs, sand eels and other small creatures swimming about - I couldn't tell if they were insect larvae or fish fry, they moved too quickly. I tried to get you a photo of a crab too, but they kept burying themselves. This beach was more rocky than the earlier one, but it was an interesting one.
Before we got back on the bus, I arranged a bit of a photo-shoot with our guys, Jose and Johnny. We were nearing the end of the tour, and I knew you guys would want a photo of the people that took care of us. Then we continued on, passing some flats where we saw some seals taking a nap.
Our third Cape of the day was Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint. We had some time here as there was quite a bit to see. First, we headed down the hill to the Cape Meares Lighthouse. The lighthouse is no longer working and you can't climb up to the lamp room, but there was a volunteer talking about the history and, of course, a gift shop.
Next we had a bit of a hike - it wasn't exactly far, but it was uphill (not as bad as 90 steps, though) to the Octopus Tree. It's a good name, as it does look like an octopus. Really! Well, I could see it. I asked it who was gonna win the next World Cup but it ignored me. The views from up here were great.
Gradually, we all made it back to the main parking lot area. We found some more squirrels here. These were too cute. You may hear rumours that I got involved in a little squirrel bribery and you'll have to decide - I did get some great shots. Even a crow came over to take a look - presumably at me.
Our lunch stop was really cheesy. We were driving through a dairy farming area and we were headed for Tillamook. You may not have heard of it in the UK, but I'd eaten a lot of Tillamook cheese - the Continental Presidential Lounge always has it when we hang out there. Anyway, our lunch stop was at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. My biggest disappointment was that we only got a one hour ten minute stop for lunch and the factory - we really needed two hours, or even more.
Cheese is one of my favourite food groups so, for a change, we stopped for lunch first - I had a grilled cheese sandwich and fries. It was outstanding! Then it was a bit of a dash for our self-guided tour. From the observation deck you can see right into the factory. It was just like one of those how it's made movies. It takes ten pounds of milk to make a pound of Tillamook cheese. Blocks of cheese pass through the factory, being cut into smaller pieces for wrapping and ongoing sale.
To ensure the weights are correct, those blocks that are overweight are trimmed and those trimmings are added to the underweight pieces. While the standard cheese-making product is made automatically, some of the more specialist cheeses are still made by hand, separating the curds and whey the old-fashioned way. There are signs around the observation deck which explain the process, some historic exhibits, and some cute cows.
We dashed downstairs in order to get our freebie tasting samples, there was a bit of a line for this - I think seven different samples from regular mild, to sharp, and pepper-infused, boy, that last one was hot! All good though. I did a quick run round the gift shop but couldn't find anything particularly interesting. They also had a cheese (and more) food-y shop, which was better, but still disappointing. Instead I got this photo taken. Cool car, eh?
I sent Di to get me some Tillamook ice-cream. It had to be done - they have 38 flavours! We nearly ran out of time, though, with just seven minutes until pick-up time. Fortunately, another of our group got in line behind us so we were fine - we wouldn't be last! I loved this place, but, as I say, seventy minutes was whey too short a stop. The gift shop does need work though, so I dropped them a Ted.
Our last leg of the day was to make for Portland, Oregon and cool, the sun had come out. The traffic was pretty bad on the approach to Portland but, as I wasn't driving, I didn't worry too much about it. We stopped off at Washington Square Park in the lovely afternoon sun, while Jose and Johnny took the bags down to the hotel. Got to say, this wasn't a high-point stop for me, but hey, you can't have everything.
We were there to check out the International Rose Test Garden. Snore. Sorry, call me un[horti?]cultured but I'm not very excited to see roses. Even less so when they've just had all their flowers cut off for some exhibition or other. So, this was a stop to look at rose bush stalks! Well, as I saw it. I'm sure others on the bus had other views. We did find there was a train to the zoo, but we couldn't manage the round trip in the forty minutes we had...not to mention my assistants are too cheap! Got to say, though, that even the gift shop was terrible. Just one Ted from me for this totally forgettable experience. Overall, I didn't have a good shopping day.
Johnny gave us a little overview of Portland on our way to the hotel. We saw the popular Pioneer Square, passed the Chinese quarter and saw the Steel Bridge, where Amtrak trains cross the river. We passed the Rose Garden Arena, the White Stag sign - owned by the city since 2010, having become a Historic Landmark in 1977.
We arrived at our hotel, the Portland Crowne Plaza. We decided to walk a few blocks to the nearby LLoyd Center Shopping Mall.There wasn't much there, really. We found Borders, Ross and Macy's then we looked over the walkway and found all those rose-heads! Blimey. They must have had a competition earlier that day.
We decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. Wine was $18, Di had a few choices so why not? The fries were a little soggy, but okay. Overall it wasn't bad and we decided to have just a couple of desserts between us - a Napoleon something with flaky pastry, strawberries and cream and this one, a baked Alaska, with chocolate cake, ice cream and meringue. Not bad - I had to be fast with my fork to stave off my assistants. The whole bill for the four of us was only $69 which seems amazing for a hotel restaurant! Hence, the overall four-star rating.
