Tip Toe Through The Tulips

 

You can now pump your own gas in Oregon. This is a new thing for me. Last time I was here an attendant always came out to help you with the rigors of filling your tank. The only gas attendant that approached me,  told me that I did not want any diesel when I pulled up to the pump with only 1 green hose. When I moved over to the pump with the regular 3 hoses he came over and I told him he was right, that I did not want any diesel. He nodded toward the pump and said I was good to go Since he had no mask he skillfully spoke to me from the side of the gas pumps I think a turkey buzzard wingspan away.

Right at the outskirts of Tillamook Oregon is the Tillamook cheese factory. Last time I was here I saw the big building and visitors center from the highway,  and thought I should stop. But then I thought no I will stop at the next big cheese factory on the Oregon coast. It turns out this is the only big cheese factory on the coast, so this time I made it a point to stop

Welcome To Tillamook Cheese Factory

The tour is self-guided, you go upstairs and can look down on the cheese making process on one side of the building, and on the other side is the packaging, and the blocks of cheddar moving along on a assembly line.

Only Senior Employees Get To Work As The "Cheese Cutter"

Will have to come back here with my riding compadre, as the only way out of the paved parking lot is on gravel, and I know how much she likes to ride on gravel.

 Further along the coast are miles of oyster farms, just off the shore, and along the road sit  processing factories. There are also mountains of shells that I learned are used in fertilizer, the making of lime. Some are recycled back into ocean to reduce acidification, and some are even used to grow more oyster.

Interesting Stuff This Science

Once you cross that massive bridge in Astoria, and find the right 101 to take you north, you find the Willapa National Wildlife Refuse I figured there might not be another Wildlife Refuse with a paved parking lot  further up the road, so I pulled in there.

The Beginning Of The Boardwalk

What a great place. I walked on the boardwalk for a ways. It goes on longer than I wanted to leave Ohms with all my gear just sitting on it, but I saw a Great Blue Heron, Red Winged Black Birds, several Swallows, Sparrows, and a chipmunk that was sitting in a bush eating seeds, that at first I thought was a bird. But it was a chipmunk. I even used my jet boil to brew up a cup of koffee and had some tuna fish too. A regular roadside picnic.

Up in the town named for a beer I got to visit with my pal The Sizzling Hippie. I even got to meet the daughter that over the years I have heard many good things about.

Siz didn’t know where the tulips were but his daughter did, and after much checking of maps,  phone maps and googling,  With Siz's help I  plotted a course that would take me around Seattle and into Mount Vernon.  And just in case you ever google your way into Mount Vernon, make sure you tell your GPS it is the one in Washington, because apparently there is another Mount Vernon, and its about 3000 miles from here, and I’m not sure they have tulips.

Several of the farms had all ready cut the flowers in preparation of harvesting the bulbs.  I went out to The Roozen Gaarde farm, and I have never seen so many tulips in such brilliant, bright colors. 

If you ever can come to Mount Vernon in April do it  just for the tulips...

Thanks for reading