Road Trip Day 9: Drive to Cannon Beach

Before we left the bustling little town of Florence we stopped at a gift shop I remembered going to during our first visit in 2008. Brad purchased some locally made goat’s milk soap for me that I bought back then and have been raving about for nearly four years. I was amazed and very excited to see they still were selling it. It has the most natural smelling fragrance and is my favorite bar soap.

After our first shopping experience of the trip we left Florence and headed North. Brad requested that we stop at one of his favorite fried seafood restaurants, Mo’s, along the coast in Newport.

He had clam chowder, fried clam strips, cod, and calamari. I had a cabbage and bay shrimp salad with a piece of wonderful bread on the side and “grilled” shrimp with a very tasty rice pilaf. The pat of butter on top of their clam chowder is a testament to how healthy this restaurant is, but it sure is tasty.

A more than pleasant surprise was re-discovering the Tillamook cheese factory along our route. The last time we went they weren’t producing cheese but today they were.

Happy milk cows outside the factory

Those are three-pound blocks of cheese that they cut and then package. It is incredibly fascinating to watch this factory in action.

We seriously indulged in some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream before hitting the road again.

When we finally reached my brother and his girlfriend in Cannon Beach we visited the famous Haystack (it is one of the largest on the Oregon Coast) and then went to a just-okay dinner at Bill’s Tavern and Brewhouse.

We were still very full from our midday ice cream so we split the sautéed shrimp with brown rice, it was a little too beer-y for us.

Cannon Beach is a very quaint little seaside town, we love the houses here

After wandering around town a bit we set-up camp and enjoyed a fire before going to bed. There were some loud/inconsiderate campers at this campground and we actually had to complain to the managers to get them to turn off their blaring radios around 11 pm. Apparently they had never been outside around other campers before. Some people amaze me. Other than that it was a wonderful experience at Wright’s for Camping with large mossy trees all around and very flat tent sites.