Geography lessons are taught on the road every day. For example, I did not know much about the Oregon coast. We drove Hwy 101 up the entire coast, from Cali to Washington. The coast is all protected as state land, and as such, there are so many state parks on the coast! Not all have campgrounds but many do. We’ve stayed at two, Humbug Mountain SP and Beverly Beach SP and both of those were very green and rainforest-like, with amazing beaches to check out. Gunner does his best work running on these huge beaches! 
Our third campsite was in a Tillamook County park, on a beach with a huge jetty, just north of the town of Tillamook. Yes, that Tillamook that makes excellent cheese and ice cream! We knew a highlight would be checking out the cheese factory and it was! Squeaky cheese curds are our favorite! The lady behind me said she hated curds and I have literally never heard that phrase in my life! Like HOW?!?! The ice cream was a highlight of the week. We’ve not been known to pig out in public, but we did today. Each of us got 5 scoops of different flavors. It was amazing, no disappointments to be found. Moo.
We also stopped by the Pacific Oyster Company, where we saw real life oyster shucking in person. It was quite the operation! Andy has had oysters before and *shocker* he loves them, but this was Woody’s first time. They gave Andy a huge one and it went down easy. Woody the brave soul ate his carefully and said he enjoyed it but probably won’t be eating another one any time soon. Jesse and I have never had one, and probably never will. I mean, if we can’t even eat one here, when will we ever?!
We also stopped by the Tillamook Country Smoker beef jerky outlet, got some beef jerky, and then drove back the next morning to buy 2 cases of jerky. We apparently liked it that much.
To put a circle to all this food action, we stopped at the Pelican Brewing Company in Tillamook. Great root beers and good beers. And good company. And they’re dog friendly so even Gunner got something to drink.
I forgot to mention that in the morning, we saw a Coast Guard helicopter doing some training with a CG boat right at our campsite. That was a highlight for the boys. It’s fun to see the Coast Guard stations along the coast, some are beautiful old nautical buildings! (MT)
Road Schooling with the Tischers 