SF & OR

Our travels took us to San Francisco for a day. We hooked up with an old family friend, Brother Robert. We were given a first class tour of the city viewing it from high points on both sides of the bay. I was great to spend some time with him, and to introduce him to our kids. The day started off foggy, but cleared enough for some great views. Here we are at the golden gate bridge....As Brother Robert was directing my driving, he said "Now, just wait for this car ahead of us to go and then it will be our turn." I did as he said, and all of a sudden I was on Lombard Street, the famous very, very, steep zig-zag street!

We explored 'Fisherman's Wharf' and had clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl along with a sandwich on sourdough bread. We all love sourdough bread!
Heading for the Oregon border, we went through a 100 mile section of thick smoke. This was from the forest fires that were burning a few ridges west of us. Some of these fires have been burning for months.
In preparation for this trip, we purchased the book Watch It made in the USA. It lists and describes some popular factory tours by region in the U.S. One of these is the Jelly Belly tour in Fairfield, CA. We had a blast watching from the catwalk above the plant floor as millions (billions?!) of jelly beans were being produced . Here we are at the 'tasting bar' where you can get a sample of every flavor they make!After we left California, we headed to the Oregon coast. We had a rare, sunny seaside day and were practically alone on the beach to explore and play in the cold surf. Below Q explores a 'tidal pool' that has tons of little brine shrimp-type creatures.


Ivo says: Here I am walking along Oregon’s Pacific coast. The water was numbingly cold, but it also was addicting. The more you went in, the more you wanted to get out yet the more you stood out of the water, the more you wanted to go back in! The waves rolled in one after another splashing our legs, creating cool patterns and leaving interesting things for us to discover. The whole beach combing was amazing.

Here I am again holding the jelly of a dead jellyfish that was clear and had a cool pattern on it. Mom is feeling it here.

Q and Xi inspect the lens of a lighthouse on Cape Meares. In the 1800's it cost $ 60,000! The glass pieces for the lens was created in Paris and shipped to Oregon in barrels of molasses for protection. It had to cross the Atlantic and then round South America before it could be hauled up this cliff and installed.
Every morning of a travel-day includes packing the car. The 'anchors' of the trunk are the cooler, the camping 'chuck box,' and the 6-man L.L. Bean tent stored behind them. Everything else gets packed around those three items. When everything is packed in its container (duffles, stuff sacks, etc.) and sitting next to the car, it takes about 10 minutes to load the vehicle as everything now has its place. This is a great improvement from the 45 + minute ordeal it took back in June. Regular shipments back home of acquired trinkets and gear we no longer need helps to keep the car load down to 'absolute necessity size'.
Tillamook, OR is home to the regional favorite, the Tillamook Cheese Company. We toured this amazing factory and saw the processing of cheddar. The aging warehouse can hold 5 million pounds of cheddar at once! The blocks below are large blocks of cheddar that have been aged and are ready to be cut and packaged.