A day at the beach and rhubarb goodies!

Yesterdays Rhubarb Bread turned out to be a cake.  If I would have read the recipe completely, before starting, I would have found out that the recipe was for 2 loaves of rhubarb bread.  So being that I only have one loaf pan, it was made in to a cake.  Still awesome I must say.

Especially with a smidge of ice cream.  We didn't have plain vanilla.  But Mountain Huckleberry swirl in vanilla is just as good. ;)  I'm not turning it away!  :D

Well, now to our trip to the beach.  We started off early the next day, all in one vehicle thinks to Gary's friend and co-worker who let us borrow his Excursion.  Bill, you are AWESOME!!!  Very nice man.  He and Gary did a trade.  We borrowed the "bus" and he borrowed Gary's engine lift.  Bill doesn't ask for much.  Good heart.  :)  So off we headed down Hwy 6 towards Tillamook, Or. playing the ABC game.  I thought we needed to do something to keep the girls from getting bored, but I was wrong.  It ended up that they were looking at everything while going through the hills and us grown ups were playing the game the most.  Go figure.  :)  We made it to our destination, the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  Man was that awesome!  Their cheese is awesome (which we already knew that) and their homemade fudge!  Thought I had died and gone to heaven!  Good thing I don't live in Tillamook.  I would be at the factory all the time buying cheese!  I was so over taken with cheese bliss that I forgot to take pics!  Dufus I know.  I did get one of the girls standing by the cows that were upstairs in the observation area.  Priorities you know.  Anyhoo, I found some links for everyone to see what we saw.  Like the HUGE cheese blocks  (42lbs)that were going through the slicers.  Mouse heaven!  Then you must check out the little videos snipets I found so you could see how fast and how much cheese moves through this place.  Way too cool!  After the self guided tour, cheese samples, pressed pennies and spending money on lots of goodies, we headed north up Hwy 101 for some more exploring.  Again twisty roads but not too bad.  I think I was mellowing out by now with having to deal with so many twisty roads.  Just a little.  The tsunami warning signs all along the highway were a bit unnerving.  I couldn't live in an area where that could happen.  I have an issue about drowning.  Pretty terrain though.  Our luck though, it was raining on and off.  Normal around this area though.

We went past Manzanita, Or. where there is supposed to be a Spanish Galleon shipwrecked off shore.  Apparently the ship was filled with beeswax and the beeswax and wood from the ship keeps washing up on shore around the area.  Here's a link to the story about the ship.  Way cool.

So down the road to Cannon Beach, Or. where we found Mo's Restaurant.  Glenn and I had been told by many people that we had to eat there because the food was super duper.  It was good, but I didn't pee my pants over it.  I was still on the look out for a good jacket for the area and they had some awesome ones for $33 but I didn't want cheesy advertising for Mo's on my jacket, so I passed.  We had gone out on the beach at the access area near the restaurant and the girls thought that was awesome.  They had never been to the ocean before and it was neat to watch them get excited.  They understood after getting out there why we did not bring bathing suits.  Freeze your buns off! :)   

They walked along looking for shells and bits to collect.  There are only certain areas you can collect shells and rocks.  They thought it was fun to let the water run over their boots and then run away from it.  They found some jellies washed up on shore.  They had been eaten some what but they girls had to poke them with their boots.  Brenna didn't want to at first because she thought she would die if it stung her.  One little poke and that was it.  They followed Dad to see all they could before we headed down the road to the shop area of Cannon Beach.

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Or. (237ft tall)  Pretty cool.  Can't climb on it.  $1500 fine if you do.  Serious stuff.  You can look but don't touch anything.

So down the road into town we went to see some of the shops.  Had to make a stop at the taffy shop and walked away with a huge bag of taffy.  Chris was happy because she found her favorite candy, the Idaho Spud.  Really good stuff!  I'll have to send her some from time to time.  Some other shops were visited but the owners must really like their stuff because it is ExPeNsIvE!!  They don't want anyone to buy anything.  I found another cool jacket but walked away from the $138 price tag.  I did find a yarn shop!  The guys didn't share in the excitement over this but it had to be explored.  Chris said she now knew why I get excited over a yarn shop.  So many beautiful colors!  I did walk out with some sock yarn by Blue Moon Fiber Arts, made in Scappoose, Or.  That's only a half hour from Chris's house!  I would be in trouble for hanging out there too much.  I would probably beg for a job just to be around all the fab sock yarn.  So after my yarn high we headed off for ...

Ecola State Park!  Very pretty!  Once again I was reminding to little mountain goats not to get near the edge of anything because of the cliffs they wanted to look over.  I was all nerves and Gary was grinning and laughing at me again.  :)  The waves crashing on the rocks were LOUD, but pretty sounding.  I had to stand for a few minutes just to listen to it.  Beautiful.

Crescent Beach, Ecola State Park, Or.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse was seen off the coast, 1 1/2 miles out from the beach.  Very neat.  Very neat story behind it.  A must read.  Beautiful.

Then we spotted Indian Beach that is inside Ecola Sate Park.  So off we went to explore that.

Another view of the rocks off of Ecola Point.

They girls were having a hay day on Indian Beach.  Too many rocks to find, tons of washed up drift wood and huge trunks of trees.  Of course they had to test their climbing abilities. :)  Brenna found one rock that she was not letting go of no matter what.  You should have seen the pocket of her jacket all hanging down, stretching out.  We just kept shaking our heads at her determination.

Tide pools to be explored.  Not for though because the tide was coming in fast.  The rock Em was standing on was covered in water in less than 10mins!  We moved fast!!

Glenn and Brenna had to take a try at running from the fast waves coming in.  She laughed so hard I thought she was going to hurt herself.  She loved it.

Then it was Chris and the girls turn to give it a try.  The wave nearly got them.

They thought they ran far enough back, but the wave came up more than they thought and had to jump and run backwards to keep out of it.  The rocks in the far background are the ones Em was on and they were completely covered by this time.  These tides move in quick!  I must say that the most noticeable thing about the coast in Oregon was the lack of the salt smell.  I had been to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico many times and the salt smell hits you the moment you get out of the car.  Not here.  Just fresh clean air.  Very different.  Even Glenn noticed it from the times we had gone to the Gulf.  By this time it was getting late and we had to head back home before it got too late.  We never did finish the ABC game.  We got stuck on XYZ.  So we had to try to finish that later.  Once again the dogs were happy to see us and the girls had to get their puppy fix in for the day before baths.  I have to tell you that none of us ate very well the whole time we were visiting.  Not Chris's fault be any means because she bought a lot of stuff before we got there.  But by the time we got home, no one felt like cooking.  A lot of snacking going on.  There was one awesome roast cooked in the crock pot for sandwiches one day which made things better.  Very good Chris! :)  Everyone hit the sack afterwards and got ready for another fun filled day the morning.  I have to say that Gary did a fine job driving the bus!  Kudos Gary!  

Well, off for some more lessons and some crafting today.  Rain is expected this afternoon so we are vegging out again.  Nothing wrong with that.  

Have a great day everyone!  Hope you enjoyed the tour today, even if it was long.  I get excited about everything we saw and don't want to leave things out.  :)  Good thing I don't do this kind of stuff everyday, right!?  LOL!!!  Back here tomorrow with more adventures!

Toodles!!