Dear Natalie,
We packed up this morning and left Crater Lake National Park, congratulating ourselves for leaving on a Saturday, as we passed the long line of cars at waiting at the entrance gates to get in.
We spent a long six hours in the car today covering about 300 miles to Tillamook County, on the coast, west of Portland.
As I was planning for the trip, I aimed to get us about halfway to Seattle tonight, and thought it would be nice to camp along the coast. All of the state park campgrounds were already full by that time, but I found a Tillamook County park that had openings.
Tillamook is home to a creamery that makes and distributes a well known and widely available brand of cheese as well as other dairy products. I read up online and learned that the creamery is open to the public for tours, and that there’s also a restaurant offering “farmstyle,” “Pacific Northwest-inspired” specialties like gourmet mac and cheese, fried chicken with a cheddar biscuit, and fried oysters with Tillamook butter. So we decided to swing through there for dinner before heading to the campsite.
The small town of Tillamook is sleepy and unassuming. Dad remarked more than once as we drover through that there’s not much going on here. The high school nickname, the Cheesemakers, is emblazoned over the football field, and Clare observed that she would love play for them so that she could say, “We’re going to cream you.”
The creamery is about two miles north of town, and we were amazed when we turned into the parking lot. It’s part dairy, part circus, part ginormous clustercuss, with a sprawling (packed) parking lot in front of a huge visitor center complex and hundreds of people lining up at the milkshake bar, browsing the market filled with cheese and gourmet snacks, following a self-guided tour through the exhibits, slopping their “farmstyle,” “Pacific Northwest-inspired” food all over the cafeteria tables, mugging for selfies in front of life-size fiberglass cows, or milling about the mega mall-sized gift shop. I’m going to estimate that about a half to two-thirds of those people were under the age of 4, and their parents, it seems, are incapable of bussing their own tables or throwing out their own trash. Really, the whole experience was part dairy, part circus, part McDonald’s PlayPlace birthday party.
We were stunned. Where did all these people come from? I asked a cashier, and she informed me that the visitor center and museum — a large, beautiful, modern space — is only three weeks old. The creamery has been there for decades, and it has been attracting visitors for just as long. (It averages 1.3 million visitors a year.) But a recent expansion and — I’m guessing — a huge marketing push (there are a thousand Tillamook-branded items in the gift shop) has made this place a popular tourist stop this summer.
From there we drove a half-dozen miles north to the Barview Jetty Campground, checked in and found our spot. There are 347 sites nestled in the dunes next to the beach, amongst clumps of twisted, shrubby shore pine trees and set among a inexplicable network of loosely alphabetized gravel roads and dirt paths, labeled from A to Y. Where’s Z? Who knows.
It’s Saturday night and this place is hopping. Every campsite has two or three or seven tents and as many cars squeezed in next to them. Some groups have lugged in their gear — and most of their apartment furnishings — with U-Haul trailers. Under the trees there are coolers and hammocks and awnings and picnic tables piled high with bins of food and gear, and wagons and bikes and tents set all wonky on the rolling dunes. It’s a global gumbo of languages and sounds and smells. Music is blaring. Kids are squealing. Dogs are barking. Teenagers are roaming around actually carrying boom boxes, like it’s 1985. There is no privacy as people wander through our site on their way to who-knows-where. It’s 10:30 right now and I can hear fire crackers. And a car alarm. And a huge party carrying on a few sites away.
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| Photos cannot capture the zoo-like atmosphere of this place. Cars and people and tents and more people, in every direction. |
We are thoroughly weirded out — mostly just from all the people. We are not in the mood for this. A few people have sauntered right into our site to check out the Teardrop and it feels like such an invasion, as if someone walked right into our house off the street and sat down to play the piano. The Crater Lake campground was quiet; campers kept a respectful distance and observed the boundaries between the campsites. But this is a different kind of campground and a different group of campers.
One of the men who approached to look at the trailer pointed out that the outside treads on the tires are worn almost smooth. I have to admit, I had kind of almost noticed this the other day; I had glanced at the tires and saw how smooth they looked, but I figured that the treads were just hidden under all the dirt and dust at the campsite, and I didn’t think to give it a closer look.
But now, after closer inspection, we think that the Teardrop has alignment issues. A similar problem surfaced in 2016, and the folks at Camp Inn Travel Trailers told me they fixed it. But maybe not. Or maybe it’s a chronic problem. We’ll have to have it checked out when we get to Seattle. … Sigh.
We set up camp quickly, then strolled down the lane to the beautiful, wide beach in time for the sunset. Such a sublime scene, with the pine-covered hills in the distance veiled in mist.
It’s almost 11 now and the campground party rages on. This campground already makes us uneasy. And now we’re stressed about the tires. I don’t know how much sleep we’ll get, but the plan now is to get up at dawn, fold up the tent, throw it in the car and get the hell out of here. We were seeking a peaceful seaside experience in Oregon. We didn’t find it.
In the meantime, Natalie, you spent the day in New York City! You took the bus from Providence. While we were packing up our gear in Crater Lake National Park, you were swinging through Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence on your way to the bus station. While we were crossing the Cascade Range and descending into Eugene, you were checking out Starry Starry Night at MOMA. And while we were cruising up the I-5 toward Salem, you were skipping around Chinatown with Gingko. What fun!
I hope you had a wonderful day, Natalie. Savor each adventures. We’re so proud of you.
Love, Mom
xoxoxoxoxoxo
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