Day 11 - Nehalem Bay to Cape Lookout

I've got my toes in the water, ass in the sand not a worry in the world, beef jerky in my hand - life is good today!
The best quote of today - "I'm not sure what I thought cycling the west coast would be like, but this isn't what I thought!"
Thankfully we both agree that it's been much better than expected!

We started today at the usual time, getting up just after 7 am. In Washington the mornings were cool and we were in our down jackets to start. This morning there was not a chill in the breeze as we rolled out in shorts and a t-shirt.

Our first stop was a quiet little diner where we feasted on french toast and pancakes before heading 25 miles to the famous Tillamook cheese factory!

The bay views we get today are stunning, and the hills are still rolling!

We have perfect timing and get to watch the steam engine roll through Rockaway Beach. I love small beach towns. Our favourites so far are Long Beach, Cannon Beach, and Rockaway Beach!

We stop 4 miles short of the cheese factory at the Tillamook smoke house to pick up some jerky for the road. The staff are incredibly friendly and we are treated to abundant samples of pepperoni and beef jerky. Their sales tactics worked, because we walked out of there with 2.5 lbs of jerky! I'm drooling just writing about it.

We roll up to the cheese factory and feel a bit like monkeys in a zoo. We stand in a long line to get sub par samples of cheese (in comparison to the meat samples), and then after a brief stop in the gift shop (sorry we didn't get you any souvenirs, we used all our weight for the jerky) we find the ice cream! We are herded through the line and barely have time to contemplate flavours as the place is just packed! The ice cream was delicious, but there were far too many people for our liking - we have been mostly in lonely hiker/biker campsites so far!
We brave the storm of people one last time to get pineapple cream sodas. Yes we have an eating problem... But it's hot outside, okay?

We stop in town to pick up groceries for the evening, mostly fresh fruit and vegetables ;)

We wind our way to Cape Lookout, our campsite for the night. The hiker/biker campsites here are nestled in the trees right by the beach (in contrast to some of the other campgrounds that have been open fields near the road, or anything in between).

Here we are treated to a nice warm beach - finally the wind isn't blowing hard enough to send us running for the hills... err... dunes!

We finally stayed up late enough to watch the sunset!