Saturday, August 30, 2014

Lincoln City and Chinook Winds Casino

August 27-28, 2014:

It is about 40 miles to Lincoln City, Oregon all on route 101 south. We initially travel through farm country, lots of cows and timber lands, then we cross a coastal mountain range and arrive at the Oregon coast.  The Oregon coast is very beautiful, when you can see it, it seems that frequently (this time of year ?) all you get is a fog shrouded view.  If the fog lifts you need to move quickly to see the view or you will miss it.


A view from a roadside pull off along route 101

We arrive at Chinook Winds Casino in Lincoln City before noon, it's a crazy place, a huge paved parking lot with RV's parked all over the place in all sorts of positions.  There doesn't seem to be any rules, no registration, no charges, there must be 75 RV's here with people coming and going all the time.  We check out the Casino, sign up for the free player card, good for a $5 credit towards slot machine play.  We are so cheap, we grab a free soft drink and then to a local McDonalds where we order from the value menu.


Chinook Winds Casino from the campground

A most interesting rig in the campground

An early morning campground view
  
Lincoln City was originally several small towns that decided to consolidate together and as you ride through town there are street signs for the different districts.  They held a contest to decide on a name, Lincoln City, as in President Lincoln, was the winner.  There is even a Lincoln Monument in town.  Most of Lincoln City looks like a big strip mall along route 101, not particularly attractive, but there are sections, the Taft district in particular, with some style.


Entrance to Taft District


An old Dodge Espresso-Ice Cream truck


At low tide, people are out clamming

Thursday was a mostly clear day so we decided we better take advantage of it and check out the coastal area to the north.  We took an alternate route 101 (Otter Crest Loop) for a few miles to the "Cape Foulweather" viewpoint.  English Sea Captain James Cook named it after the bad weather he encountered there.  At the viewpoint, Gray Whales could be seen far out in the ocean coming to the surface and blowing.


How Cape Foulweather was named


Several Gray Whales were spotted 

Surfers were also spotted

View from headland looking down onto the beach

The loop road then continued another mile or so to Otter Rocks and the Devils Punchbowl and more great views.  The Otter Crest loop road then rejoins route 101 and a few miles away is the Yaquina Head Natural Area and historic Lighthouse.  The Lighthouse was built in 1873 and is the tallest Lighthouse on the Oregon coast at 93 feet.  It is a BLM recreation area with an excellent visitors center.  Unfortunately, the tidal pools were covered as it was high tide.  The views were great however as the fog was gone.


Devil's Punchbowl

BLM visitor center exhibit

Cormorants on the rocks

Yaquina Lighthouse

View of the coast near the Lighthouse

The polished beach stones, as the surf
washed over them, made the weirdest sound

View from the beach

Yaquina Lighthouse

Gray Whale coming to the surface

Close-up of the Lighthouse beacon


We finished off this adventure by going into the city of Newport to the Nye Beach area that had an arch leading into a alley to a beautiful beach. There also were many small restaurants and cafes, we stopped and had a good lunch at Cafe Stephanie's.

Nye Beach

There were several interesting banners

Some of them were rather strange

We then wandered around and drove over a large steel arch bridge with incredible views of the Newport harbor area.  There is the Newport Marina and RV Park on the other side that could be of interest on another trip.  On the shoreline, under the bridge is the Rouge Nation World Headquarters of Rouge Brewery.  We had to stop, it is their main brewery with tours, a tap room, restaurant and store.  You actually walk through the Brewery amongst the brew tanks to get to the restaurant area.  Rouge Brewery's marketing, PR, artistry and attitude is top self, not sure about the beer ?


Nessie the world famous Sea Monster in Newport

The Rouge Brewery

Pink Vodoo beer, a takeoff on Portland's
Vodoo Do-nut shop theme

The famous Port of Newport Bridge

Rogue Nation World Headquarters

A Tavern in Newport
  

You might be wondering what happened with our free gambling money at the Casino. We used all $10 up, won a little, lost a little and came out almost even.  The Casino is very nice with a Hotel and Convention Center on the beachfront, one of the best we have camped at and the price is right !  

A final stop was to the "Rusty Truck" brewery roadhouse 101 in Lincoln City.  A really nice brewpub that has a large dining area, good looking menu and good selection of beers.  I would go again if in the area.

Next stop, another Casino parking lot, hope our luck improves.  
Twinkles and Slick 


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Tillamook Oregon

August 25-27, 2014:

An early start out of Columbia River Rv Park around 8:45 AM as we are heading to a cheap campground in a popular area with no reservations, a recipe for trouble.  We are in rush hour traffic, something we normally avoid like the plague and it bites us.  It takes us about an hour to go the first 20 miles due to stop and go traffic on routes 5 and 26 due to an accident.  Once past the accident scene it is clear sailing, except that it is a very curvy, rough roller coaster ride across the mountains to the coast.  We pull into the "Port of Tillamook RV Park" located 2 miles south of Tillamook, Oregon to find only a couple of open sites, but they are good ones and we quickly set up.  At $10 a night we like it.  This is a dry camping site, there's not much to set up and we plan to only stay only 2 nights. 


View of the Tillamook Air Museum building

Tillamook movie theater has a new owner

Very cool Cow bench in downtown Tillamook

A "Donkey steam engine" used for logging in the old days

We immediately head to the major attraction here, the Tillamook Cheese factory.  They have an unbelievable (pure Genius) setup with a self guided tour of the plant from second floor observation windows overlooking the plant floor.  You can then sample their cheeses and then buy them and lots more at their attached store.  If you are hungry, they have a restaurant with a menu heavy on cheesy items and then an ice cream shop.  We split a grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato on sourdough bread that was the best ever for me.  Everyone there (hundreds) were walking around with ice cream cones or dishes, near impossible to pass up on that, we didn't.


Tillamook Cheese

Blocks of cheese on the production floor

Tilly the cow mascot

Twinkles in the Baby Loaf truck

The other major attraction here is the coast.  We rode the "Three Capes Scenic Drive" stopping at Oceanside Beach State Recreation Site in the cute town of Oceanside for a beach walk.  It's a beautiful large sand beach with a rocky coastline and huge sea stacks in the ocean.  There was a tunnel cut through the rock on the coast that allowed you to get past the surf to the other side of beach.  Lots of people were searching for garnets there. 


Oceanside Beach area

There was a tunnel through this rock to the other side

The other side, there were people searching for Garnets


Then a few miles further north is Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint and Lighthouse.  The Lighthouse is the shortest lighthouse in Oregon at 38 feet tall, but sits on atop Cape Meares which puts it 217 feet above the sea.  It was built in 1887 and has a first order fresnel lens, hand ground in Paris that is visible for 21 miles.


A distorted view through the Lighthouse window

The Lighthouse lens

View from the trail which is level with the Lighthouse

A trail view along the coast


First order of the day was breakfast at the Tillamook Cheese factory, such a great place !  Then I am off to the Tillamook Air Museum which is in an original wood hanger that was built during WWII to house Blimps.  The Tillamook airport is adjacent to our campground and was one of the Blimp bases during the war years.  The building is all wood and is the largest wood building in the world, authenticated by the Guiness book of records.  It held eight Blimps inside, the photo of them in there is pretty incredible !  Originally there were two buildings, but one burnt down years ago.  The museum doesn't have a huge number of aircraft, or maybe they just look small in that building ?  They do have, no doubt about it, great exhibits, photos and memorabilia from the war years.



Photo of all eight Blimps inside the Hanger

A special airplane fabricated from two old airliners for the
transport of large vehicles and NASA 

The interior, the rear section is hinged and swings open

View inside the massive Museum Hanger

A 7/8th scale reproduction, that actually flies, of a WWI vintage bi-plane

Another vintage aircraft on display

Looks very complex !

A retired Vietnam and Iraq era fighter jet with lots of combat time 

Thirty some mission in Iraq for "Shooter Sanders"


After that, we needed to burn off some calories, too much cheese and ice cream intake lately, so we head for Cape Lookout State Park and the Cape trail.  The trail is 4.7 miles round trip and was one of the more unique trails we have ever done because of the fog and the wetness.  The trail goes out on a narrow spit of land to Cape Lookout where there is a great viewpoint.  We would be in the sun, out of the wind on one side of the spit, then a minute latter in dense, cold, windy, wet fog with water dripping from the trees on the other side of the spit.  Also you had to slog through mud, water and over tree roots for long sections.  It was a little wild and exciting, but the views when you would break out of the fog made it all worthwhile. 


View near start of the hike

Moments looked like this

Then mud, fog, cold wind and slippery tree roots


Then the sun would stream through again


I was keeping to the right

As over the edge, it drops straight down like this


The lichens are beautiful


Next stop is another hop down the coast to a Casino parking lot in Lincoln City, Oregon;

Twinkles and Slick