Friday, August 24th, 2018…… Today Frances was due in. She booked in to
Portland so we planned our morning to leisurely get up there in time to meet
her. We did our normal routine and left the house about 9:45am. I had seen that
Hwy 99, which goes through our entire state, ran parallel to I5 – so we chose
that route. We’d never traveled that road before so it was an adventure. No,
it’s not an interstate and has traffic lights, but we weren’t in a hurry and we
knew it ran pretty close to the airport once you get into Portland. It turned
out to be better than expected! Nice drive and we saw things we need to go back
to further investigate. We sat in the cell phone lot and waited for Frances to
call and then drove in to the pickup area and got her. I wanted to bring her
back through the city and we did that, with only one detour for a closed frwy
ramp. The trouble came later when I ignored a traffic incident warning on my
GPS. We got stuck for over 45 minutes waiting for a travel trailer to be moved
off the highway. But we made it home in time to feed Rylee and then take off
again for dinner since none of us had lunch. We chose Skyline and Penny came
over to the house and joined us. We had a nice meal and drove back through the
area to show Frances around a bit. Then it was back home and get the monster
mutt her dinner and let her out. Later,
I called my jury hotline number to see when I have to report. My jury number is
what they go by and my number is on the list for this Thursday. I still have to
call in on Wednesday so it may change. The girls spent most of the evening
visiting and getting caught up. I watched the Monterey Mecum Auctions I had
taped. Tomorrow we are making the drive to the coast and then up to tour the
Tillamook Cheese Factory. They have opened the newly remodeled tour center so
that will be new to us.
Saturday, August
25th, 2018…… Today we got up and got going early again. I fed
and walked Rylee and then we set out on our day’s adventure. It’s probably 90
miles all totalled to get to the Tillamook factory. But it’s a nice drive and there
is never any traffic to speak of. Rather than search for a place for breakfast,
we decided to stop at Elmer’s even though it was a few miles out of the way. We
were in and out pretty quickly and on our way. Frances liked it and said she will definitely be taking Raymond to the one in Palm Springs soon! Frances was also very impressed with
our area, even though the crops are harvested and the fields are mostly dirt
and very dusty when the tractors are working them. She liked our coastline and
commented that it certainly wasn’t congested like So Cal is! We got to
Tillamook and got a great parking spot! We went in and were immediately
impressed with the place. You go right upstairs and straight ahead to look down on the production line through viewing windows. Very nice. On the way out you go past
the room that documents the process that the milking cows go through before the
milk reaches the plant.
Then you go to the tasting room! They had several cheeses to choose from. We
learned from others before us that you can skewer several pieces of cheese with
one toothpick and fill several and then eat them once out of the line. We
definitely got our fill!
Then, you go downstairs and through - what else –
their store! Yes, we bought some cheeses and even some summer sausage (from
Debbie D’s which is across the street – saved us a trip!). Frances got Raymond
some souvenirs and then we went and got in line for some lunch. This was the
part they didn’t get right. They have three lines – one for food and one each
inside and outside for ice cream. We wanted soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
The line was very slooowww in moving. When we finally got to the front we saw they only
had one person taking orders! They use gps devices to find you once you go find
a table. They had plenty of room for folks to sit and eat (another plus from
before the remodel). If they could put more people at the registers, it would
have moved faster. But we suffered through that and got seated. Lydia and I
split a cheese cubano and shared a cup of tomato soup plus a plate of fries.
Frances had the soup and cheese sandwich. The food was excellent! Afterward, we
headed back and took a shortcut to get to Salem and then down to home. It was a
long day but it gave Frances a broad spectrum of the different landscapes of
our state. Thanks to sis for coming over and feeding Rylee lunch and
dinner. We decided that since we ate a
decent lunch, we would just snack for dinner. We had planned to bbq a tri tip
but that will now be for tomorrow. We ended up crashing for the day.
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