Rockaway: Lots of Eating and Playing

.What with staying up late each night to watch the Olympics, we never got a very early start in the mornings. Tom and I would be up, but teenagers and their mom like to sleep in. 

Thursday morning we were very pleased to find the Bayfront Bakery in Garibaldi open for business. 

Jill is noted for her six item bakery food fest, but she settled for three this time. 

From the bakery we traveled south to The Blue Heron French Cheese Company, where we found fun outside at the petting zoo and inside tasting samples of cheese and preserves and other local products. 

 Look! It's an Oregon Duck!

 Irene was not at all sure about holding a hen, but Allie loved it. 

 Inside the shop you can buy small packets of grain to feed the animals "healthy" snacks. 

 This guy kept his distance. No horning in on the treats.

From the Blue Heron we drove north to the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. We had lots of company. This is a must stop for tourists on the north Oregon Coast. 

We spent time at the viewing windows watching the cheese making process, as we always do. We shopped in the gift shops and managed to leave most of the items for others to buy. The kids posed in the cheese loaf van, also always a requirement.

And of course we ate ice cream. I actually had just a few spoonfuls of Tom's Mocha Almond Fudge, since we had been eating lots of ice cream every evening.

See what I mean? This was the well-stocked cabin freezer.

It was about 1:00 when we got back to the cabin, time to check out the Pronto Pup right across the highway from the cabin.

For 50 cents you can ride the world's only mechanical corn dog. 

In fact the corn dog was invented right here in Rockaway Beach, when the hot dog vendor overcame a soggy rain soaked bun problem by dipping the dogs in pancake batter, or so the owners claim. 

Lunch to go. 

I had a bit healthier lunch at the cabin and set off on my daily beach walk. 

My route, between two creeks, is about three miles round trip, and is marked by the changing perspective of the rocks. To start we have an arched rock. 

Down the beach the hole closes from view and we get the official Twin Rocks. 

At the turn around point we see that there is a back side to those rocks and they look more like book ends waiting for books.

Point of view is everything. 

I had the beach almost to myself until I encountered this wet moppet emerging from the surf. 

She was cold and wet and done, but these two were in it for more. 

After a warm shower Irene tried her hand at kite flying with her mom. I sat on the beach and read my book. 

Jill and I cooked dinner and after a rest we all went back out onto the beach to watch the sunset, play, and eat s'mores. 

We watched the stars come out, and the first of the Perseid meteor showers. 

We went back inside to catch up with the Olympics, and at midnight Jill, Irene and I went back out to watch for a few more falling stars.