A Full Day in Tillamook, Oregon

We stayed at the Tillamook Elks RV Park for the night of August 4. . What a nice, spacious park in a country setting! The Elks RV Park is several miles from the lodge located in town. What a contrast to a just an area of the parking lot of a local lodge. This is like a real, privately owned campground! We had full hook-ups with 50 amp power! Currently $30 a night. They do have serious, packed dirt speed bumps every few yards between the entrance and the end of the main entry road by the “office” check-in hut, but there weren’t any put on the roads of the RV sites.

**Aerial drone shot of the sites and the beautiful corn field behind us.**

We drove over to the Tillamook Creamery. We thought since it was only open for another 2- 2 1/2 hours that it would be less busy. Wrong! People were lined-up out the door and another line to the left for ice cream. We didn’t know if the one line was to get in or to order food, but regardless, we continued through the full parking lot to the exit. We did not want to subject ourselves to that kind of crowd outside or inside! (A good friend had warned us about the wall to wall people inside when they visited a couple weeks earlier. Hardly anyone was wearing a mask. Covid was present and was contracted by all four of them, and they were all fully vaccinated.)

Instead, we went to the Blue Heron French Cheese Company. SO much better! They offer a free night’s stay on the grounds in your RV provided you patronize their business. Quite a few RVers we know have stayed here via the Harvest Host program, but you don’t need to belong to Harvest Host to stay here.

We started off by checking out the animals outside. We didn’t hang out very long. Our priority was tasting the wine and cheese INSIDE.

There were only a few people inside. We felt comfortable with masks to order the wine tasting flight of 5 wines, and the brie cheese sampler platter which had 4 different wedges of brie.

**The table we would take after it is cleaned off.** **Great ambience.**

We were not impressed with the wines, but the brie samples were awesome and plentiful. Sample wedges included: plain, herb, black pepper, and smoked. I liked all four. They were all so creamy. Barry’s favorite was the smoked one, so that’s the one we purchased to take home. I also bought a jar of the most flavorful unsweetened, marionberry fruit spread!

**Oops–guess we were hungry. Ate most of it before I thought to take a picture! Not nearly as pretty as it was before we demolished it. SO YUMMY!**

Then on the way back to the Elks RV, we decided to check out the Air Museum. We only had an hour and a half before it closed, but were reassured it would be doable. Most people supposedly take 1.5- 2 hours. I think 2 hours would have been better, but we were glad we got it in. Thank you, Renee B and Tom P for recommending it!

The Air Museum is inside a World War II, wooden blimp (K-class aircraft) hangar. The inside construction is super cool. It took a couple years to complete the one you see here today which is identified as Hangar “B”. Hangar “A” was then constructed in only 27 days!! Unfortunately, in 1992, Hangar A caught fire and burned to the ground while it was storing a hangar full of hay/straw.

The hangar dimension info:
Length 1,072 ft Width 296 ft Height 192 ft (over 15 stories)
Doors 120 ft high and 296ft wide
Area >7 acres which is about 6 football fields!

The K-class airships were 252 ft in length with a diameter of 80 ft (height and width). More importantly these ships had a range of 2000 miles and could stay up for 3 days! This is why they were ideal for patrolling the coasts of Oregon and Washington, and for escorting ship convoys.

The “Air Museum” actually has much more inside than aircraft. Here are some of my favorite areas…

All that remains of Hangar “A”

Train pics for Isaac:

How a Jet Engine works –in simple terms:

Cockpit Trainers:

F-14’s

Fire Trucks for Justin:

For my farmer friends:

This one reminds me of “Mater”, the tow truck in the “Cars” movies.

Additional aircraft on display:

There was a pretty extensive section on World War II. They had miniature ships, submarines, aircraft, etc but not just for the US, but also Germany and Japan. Scenes were also created for key events. I found the displays to be interesting, but creepy, so I didn’t stay long.