We woke up early again on Sunday and after a brief walk along the beach, headed to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We did the self-guided tour of the factory and saw a few quality control workers on the assembly line of cheese. It was neat watching them pick out the bricks that were either underweight or overweight. The factory produces 167,000 pounds of cheese each day and packages one million pounds of cheese each week. The factory warehouse has the capacity to age 50 million pounds of cheese at once, that's a lot of cheese! We also ate free samples of various cheeses and bought some to take with us.

The next stop was Cape Meares, the first of a three-cape scenic route off of US 101. We continued to be pleasantly surprised by the nice, sunny weather, which allowed for great views from the viewpoint and the lighthouse. The Cape Meares Lighthouse was one of the smaller ones I've seen. After taking in the awesome views of the ocean and seastacks, we made our way to the Octopus Tree just a short walk into the forest from the lighthouse. It looked like what you'd expect - several different trees sprouting from a single above-ground trunk. It was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen.

We didn't have enough time to stop at the other two capes - Lookout and Kiwanda. Instead, we did a short hike on Whalen Island in the middle of them. It was a short, relatively easy hike through a small forested area with shorter trees than normal and lots of sand. I'd never hiked on sand that much before. We could hear ATVs in the distance riding on the dunes, which was pretty cool. Halfway through the hike you could walk to the shore of a small lake in the middle of all the sand.

We were pretty hungry after the hike, so we stopped in Pacific City to eat a late breakfast at The Grateful Bread. Then we drove on down the coast until our next hike at Cascade Head. We were lost for a little bit trying to find the upper trailhead, but we eventually found it. We had to drive on a dirt and gravel road for 3 miles. We hiked through a very green forest to the viewpoint at the top in the meadow area with lots of yellow flowers. We had a nice view of the hills and the valley below, including Salmon River and the rest of the coastline. We also saw several hawks circling and could hear sea lions making noise in the distance. Some very endangered types of flowers only grow on Cascade Head, but unfortunately I didn't find any.

By this time it was around 4:00 in the afternoon, and the next stop was another short hike to the Devil's Punch Bowl! We walked down to the beach and then out onto some slippery rock formations in order to get to the punch bowl itself. It was a little difficult to navigate around the slimy rocks and not slip. It was worth the trouble though because the inside of the punch bowl had red markings on the rock and the water would come crashing in from the ocean through small caves.

Shortly after that, we stopped at Yaquina Lighthouse near Newport and walked to the top of a small hill to the east of it for a nice view. Then we drove 42 miles all the way to Heceta Lighthouse, south of Yachats. We hiked a short distance up to the lighthouse for a great view. Then we drove to a different view point a little farther to see the lighthouse from a distance, just in time to watch the beautiful sunset over the ocean. It was amazing!

We drove back north into Yachats and ate dinner at the Luna Sea Fish House before heading to our hotel for the night. We stayed at Deane's Oceanfront Lodge, which was right on the beach. Before settling in, we walked down to the beach and enjoyed the sound of the ocean waves. We looked up and saw tons of stars everywhere! It was easily the most stars we'd seen since being in Hawaii for our honeymoon. We were far away from any city lights and there was no moon out, which made them easier to see. It was really romantic and definitely my favorite part of the trip.

Ocean Waves near Three Capes Drive on Vimeo.

Cape Meares on Vimeo.

View of the coast from Cape Meares on Vimeo.