Jesus take the wheel.....

Yeah....I put Salt and the rig through their paces yesterday. I really wanted to do all the lighthouses and state parks and the roads were very narrow and very full of major curves, twists and turns. Salt was a bit apprehensive at first but when he saw the sights unfolding he had to admit it was all worth it!

Our first stop and hike was to the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. This particular lighthouse is not accessible by land so it was not as much fun as the ones we could actually tour. It does however, have a very interesting history. It stands 133' above sea level with 62-foot high tower on basalt rock islet. It is the only privately owned Oregon coast lighthouse on National Register of Historic Places; it is now used as a columbarium, a storage place for ashes of the deceased. Exposure to storm waves earned it the nickname Terrible Tilly

The shoreline views from this lookout were phenomenal. I took this picture of the ocean with the mist and then turned to the east and took another picture in the sunlight. We did a lot of hiking in this park. We are SO in love with the Oregon coast and the state parks.

!Our next stop was Cape Meares Lighthouse. This particular lighthouse is the shortest on the Oregon Coast, standing 217 feet above sea level with a 38 foot tower. They had personnel on site that took us to the top of the tower (spectacular views) and gave a short history of the lighthouse.

After touring Cape Meares we drove down the coast through all these really quaint fishing villages. We stopped for lunch at Port Garabaldi. We walked down to the docks where fishing is a major industry. We happened into a great little restaurant and had a great FRESH fish lunch. After lunch we headed down to the basin to check out some of the commercial and Private charter boats. Salt and thought we had found the remains of Forest Gump's boat when we walked past this one! It had everything but the kitchen sink hanging off it...

We had planned on heading to another lighthouse when Salt spotted a sign for the Tillamook Air Museum. http://www.tillamookair.com/ . We pulled off and did the tour. It wasn't as large as some of the air museums I have seen but was still very interesting. Besides military aircraft they also had some unique home built planes and even this neat blimp.

As the sun started to go down we looked for another state park and landed here at.....Devil's Lake State Recreation Area. They were closed when we arrived so we simply found a spot we liked and put $18.00 in an envelope. Salt grilled Rib Eye steaks and Oregon sweet corn for dinner....it is really fun traveling with my own personal chef!