Category: Foodie

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Northwest Oregon – Tillamook

Blimps, Cheese, and a Waterfall

Tillamook Creamery

If you recognize the name Tillamook at all, no doubt it is because of their cheese. In 1854 some dairy farmers in Tillamook formed a cooperative to build a sailing ship to transport their goods up the Columbia to sell them in Portland. Somewhere between now and then these farmers figured out the magic formula for what is now called agrotourism. Today there are about 90 family farms that make up the collective, and the Tillamook Creamery hosts over a million visitors each year.

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Glacier National Park (sort of) – Shelby Montana to Moscow Idaho

Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

Things didn’t begin well for my visit to Glacier. First I found the antique reservation system the National Park Service uses makes it virtually impossible to use unless you are willing to hover over your computer six months in advance as if you were sniping an eBay auction. Private parks weren’t a great option either, as they were cashing in on the situation and charging in the neighborhood of a hundred bucks a night to stay at a KOA outside the gates.

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Michigan NorthCentral UP – Munising & Pictured Rocks

One of the reasons operations like the one in Fayette closed down was the growth of the steel industry closer to their industrial customers. The iron ore was still being sourced from the same area on the West end of Lake Superior, but now it was being carried down through the Soo Locks by big freighters like the Edmond Fitzgerald. I wanted to see the business end of the greatest of the Great Lakes, so I headed back up North to the town of Munising and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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