Growing up in Oregon, the town of Tillamook is very important- it is the home of the Tillamook Cheese Factory! When I was younger I used to go to Tillamook fairly often with my dad, who had friends in Tillamook that he would go surfing with on the Oregon Coast. We never missed an opportunity to stop at the Cheese Factory for an ice cream cone, and I always loved touring the factory and browsing the gift shop (I was a shopper from day one!).

Even though Tillamook is only about a 35 minute drive South from Manazanita, David and I had never been together on one of our weekend trips! This past weekend we decided to do a drive down the coast and explore what the town had to offer.

Our first stop was of course the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We toured around the factory and got to see the assembly line going in full force- packaging cheese and inspecting the blocks to make sure there were no defects. We sampled some delicious ice cream (marionberry pie for David, blackberry for me), and had a great time touring the gift shop while enjoying our cones. The gift shop has great cheese, including cheese curds, which you can only get at the factory, and some rare flavors. They also have tons of cheese accessories- we picked up a few different mustards, and I had so much trouble not buying more!

We also visited the Blue Heron French Cheese Company- we were clearly on a cheese kick that day! Blue Heron is much smaller than Tillamook, and is really more of a large shop than a factory. We enjoyed sampling some fantastic brie, browsing around the shop, and even treated ourselves to a wine tasting. They have a petting zoo outside as well, and I had a fun time petting the animals through the fence.

We wanted to go to Cape Meares viewpoint while we were in town, but there had been a landslide that blocked the road. We decided to drive back to Manzanita (we didn't want our cheese to sit in the hot car!!) but we will be back to explore more of Tillamook soon.