Wheeler & Surroundings

On this day, we drove south from Cannon Beach since we did the north route the previous day. We headed out on H-101, first town we came to is Manzanita. This is a quiet town, a bit smaller than CB, a few stores in the area, and of course another nice beach. We didn’t stop.

The next town is Wheeler. Listen to Nilenka’s recommendation, we stopped. I browsed the antiques shops there while my hubby is patiently playing with his Blackberry outside. The weather is nice. The railroad crossed in front of the antiques shops. The merchandises were overpriced but nicely stocked. I saw a few things I would like, but outside my set budget since I can find it cheaper on ebay.

We continued south bound. We spot a sign for LIVE CRAB. We turned in and found this quaint dock and crab shake at the Jetty Fishery. Apparently, you can pay to crab here. The area is very scenic. There are some people there already crabbing for a while. They used fish head/bones. You can only keep male crab larger than a certain size. The female ones and the smaller males got thrown back to the water. Of the family that was pulling up the crab net, they were only able to keep one!!! But heck, the kids were having fun…

We passed by Garibaldi on our way to Tillamook. The tall smoking stack is the only tall building in the town of wood factories. Our purpose of reaching Tillamook is to tour the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I figured we are in the proximity, why not when you see their products on the grocery shelf all the time. We did the self guide tour, wow, lots of cheese, really huge blocks that cut down to more consumable size. Then of course, we got some samples, and we also tried the ice cream. My appetite for ice cream is not high; I can hardly finish one scoop. My dear hubby helped to finish that. We made one more stop at the Blue Heron Cheese Factory before we returned; all because a street sign said something about French cheese and wine tasting. Didn’t really find anything interesting there except the old vehicles and the pheasant (I think?) And two painted wood boards for the two goofies here.



On the return trip, we found the Oswald West State Park. We needed to stretch our legs so a walk in the forest sounded interesting. Following a hiking trail, we found the Short Sand beach. What a nice surprise, going through the mature forest and it opens up to a fine sand beach in the Smuggle Cove. I can see why they name it such. It is kind of hidden and private. Very nice indeed.



P.S. In the last couple days, I learned to use Photoshop actions. I got some free ones from Pioneer Woman Photography, so I went a bit crazy with the photo editing here...Well, the theory is if you have good pictures, actions can make it great. If you have bad ones, nothing can be done about it. There is only so much one can do with bad ones...