Astoria & Tillamook

We went out of our way a bit to go to  Tillamook and yes it was just so we could go to the factory. We weren't the only ones either who had the same idea, there were a lot of other eager cheese tasting patrons. They have a landing where you can look down on the factory floor and  read about their history, how the cheese and other dairy items are made there. They are a local family farm company which I thought was really cool. We of course had free samples of their cheese. The squeaky cheese was out favorite and yes it really squeaks when you eat it! We also had a five scoop sampler of their ice cream, which was the best deal. It was a meal of ice cream for us! So much creamy goodness! I love their flavors especially the Carmel hazelnuts(Oregon is one of the leading producers of hazelnuts) 

Waiting patiently in line for the cheese samples

They gave us five really good scoops of ice cream, it was piled high!

Had to buy our own squeaky cheese too

The reason why we don't always share food, our tastes are a bit different. I do love an occasional Costco pizza slice. We love Costco in general and we were so ecstatic that there was one near Astoria!

 We then made our way up the Oregon coast to Astoria where Free Willy and the Goonies were filmed. This town is so quaint and has a free audio your you can download to learn about the town. You can tell the people here love their town. The houses are gorgeous here all Victorian style. It kind of felt like if Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls were a real place this would be a contender for it. We went to the column to get a nice but a bit foggy view of the town. You can buy a wooden airplane for a dollar and launch it off the top, so of course we bought one. 

We went camping that night on the Washington side at this great but very misty campground. 

Walking to the Goonies House

 

The Astoria column depicts scenes from the town's history.

View from the top of the column

Our misty campsite by the bay

Apizza Scholls restaurant that I forgot to mention in Portland. Pretty incredible pizza here and we should know Matt is the Pizza connoisseur.

Top Tips:

1. Watch Goonies and Free Willy 

2. If you are lactose and tolerant and you visit Tillamook make sure to take lots of lactaid, this is the real deal dairy.

Portlandia

I'm from a pretty eclectic hippie town   aka Asheville, NC so I'm use to its level of weirdness but I think Portland has it beat. It definitely has a free spirit, anything goes kind of feel about it. You can be and express whatever you like there and it is welcomed, which is kind of cool. Very nonjudgmental vibe and people are really quite cheerful here despite the cloud cover that rarely dissipates. It is definitely laid back feeling here but maybe that's just the weed effect. Portland is an absolute  foodies dream though. They have so many clever start up restaurants, food carts, food trucks, and lots of authentic ethnic food! Our first night we ate at a food truck called the Angry Unicorn and it had juicy delicious burgers! We had a full day exploring Portland. Our first stop was the international test rose garden. I loved it and took lots of pictures. Matt had a different view point he was more interested in. 

Matt's favorite part of the Rose Garden, he's not much for flowers I guess

This one smelled amazing but it didn't have a name by it!

Just love this name for a rose.

We then went to the Pittock Mansion just to check out the view we didn't go in to the house because my friend Melanie said it wasn't worth the $10. The view is definitely priceless though!

 We then went to the Saturday market, which is basically a farmers market with great people watching andbooths with lots of funky things for sale. 

We walked up to the famous voodoo donut shop to check it out. Pretty sure the line was an hour long so we decided to ship it, we are not dedicated donut fans. We heard that blue star is really the place to get donuts and minimal line. 

I don't think they will have to try too hard :)

The Line for Voodoo Donuts

We decided to check out the OMSI: Oregon museum of science and industry. It was pretty fun, but I love science so it was right up my alley and we are kind of kids at heart anyways. 

Safety first

Heat cam, red means cool actually, yes I am rudolph all the time

We went down to China town which maybe we just weren't in the best part of town because it was pretty sketch. There are lots of homeless people in Portland. 

We made our way out of that part of town and headed to one of the famous Powell's bookstore. Oh my goodness this place is heaven! It had newly released books, old, used ones and just floors and rooms full of books! There were lots of places to sit down and read and they didn't care if you did. People were just camped out with their dogs enjoying a good book. Portland is a good place for this kind of bookstore, the weather just makes you want to curl up with a good book. 

How Matt sees the Food Pyramid

Salt & Straw ice cream is amazing and so creamy! Lots of unique flavors and the people want you to be happy with your choice so they are more than eager to have you taste any flavor you want! The line is long here as they have a devote following for their delicious ice cream. Luckily we had great company with my friend Melanie from BYU and her husband Lucas. They are a top notch couple and we wish we could hang out with them all the time!

Giants- The Redwoods

This place was on my bucket list and it was amazing! We camped at the Jedediah Smith campground, which has been our favorite spot so far. We also heard a few owl hoots during the night and also a few nosies that sounded like dogs barking, then monkeys!!! We later learned those are the noises the barred owl makes... So strange wish we had seen it.(And there were showers here, always a bonus) You camp at the base of all theses redwoods and you can cross a bridge right into the Stout Grove from the campsite.

Love seeing the flag in so many places

Yoga attempts in the redwoods

 Stout grove was incredible. It is really hard to capture how big these trees really are. They can grow up to 350 feet and the oldest recorded so far I believe was 1,500 years old. They have shallow roots but they can extend far out. It is from these roots that other redwood trees grow. So they have little redwood families. 

We wanted to see the tallest tree in the trees of mystery but you had to pay $15 and who can really tell how tall these are from the ground because you can barely see the tops of most of them. So we skipped that but we did go do the drive through a redwood tour. It was $5 and we made the most of it because we were the only ones there so we drove through it six or seven times. It was a bit of squeeze and required Matt's maneuvering skills. 

We also went to the Simpson Reed grove and the redwoods in this grove were even larger in diameter there! They are just so massive it's just unreal. I felt like I was in the chronicles of narnia because they jus felt so magical. With all the fern growth it also looked a lot like where the ewoks lived in Star Wars, yes I know nerd alert. This place should be on your list of places to go.

We ran into Sasquatch 

Driving along the coast

There is a dinosaur park with you can walk through with the "dinosaurs" but it was  a little pricey for us for what it was.

Driving up to Oregon on the coast I had read about the most arguably beautiful Light house. This wasn't it even though the name was extremely similar. 

This one was cute, though supposedly haunted.