When I watch my twins playing together around our yard or out in the woods, I often think of all the important things shared between siblings. Although I don’t know what it’s like to have a twin, I am lucky to have a little brother. There is no other person in the world who shares my wealth of childhood camping memories. Of course, our parents have fond memories of all the camping trips, backpacking treks, backcountry boat excursions, river rafting adventures, backroad journeys and bushwhacking shenanigans, but not from the perspective of a couple of kids growing up in outdoor places. We spent a lot of time exploring wild lands together, from the Siebert’s Creek ravine behind our home in the Olympic Mountain foothills to nameless mountain tarns in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We played, we fought, we built forts, we imagined whole kingdoms, and we soaked up the outdoors. The woods, the mud, the rocks and the streams shaped us. We were quite the adventurers.
Recently, my brother and I decided it was about time we went camping together again, since the last time was when I was home for the summer from college and he was still in high school. We had never gone without our parents! I suggested yurt camping since this is the best way our family has found to get out into the outdoors in the wintertime. February camping in the Pacific Northwest can be very cold and wet indeed without a very warm, dry shelter, which makes the Oregon State Park camping yurts a year-round outdoorsman’s dream come true. We decided on Cape Lookout State Park as a good halfway point between Seattle and Eugene, and a good place for a little agro-tourism fun in nearby Tillamook (think creameries…think cheese…lots of cheese.)
More exciting than the camping and the cheese was that my brother and his girlfriend recently announced their wedding plans for next Fall. I could think of no better way to welcome someone to this family than to go camping together and carry on our traditions of fun outdoor excursions. Dan and Kat have been keeping busy in Seattle working, bartending, cooking, playing music, and scheduling bands to play at the Irish pub where he works, while our family has been busy with our homesteading endeavors here in Oregon, so I was looking forward to spending some time together beyond the yearly visits at the holidays.
It was Kat’s first yurt camping trip, and I wanted her to have a good winter camping experience, so we were very pleased to find that these were some of the nicest yurts we had stayed in. All the state parks yurts we’ve visited have been very well kept and clean, but these had a different furniture placement making them more roomy, and more lighting. Many of them were elevated several feet off the ground with covered decks providing nice views out into the trees. I was very glad we went with yurts rather than tents because it poured buckets and hailed every night, and the snow level came all the way down to the hill behind the campground. Through it all, our yurts stayed very comfortably warm and dry. We also noticed an intriguing cluster of new camping cabins in the woods looking right out over the beach, which I filed away as an idea for future camping trips together.
When we rolled up one of our window coverings we discovered we had a furry little friend! This tiny bat was taking his daytime slumber under the shelter of this nice warm spot. It made little squeaking and clicking sounds at us, but didn’t seem to wake up. We checked back after sunset, and our bat friend had flown off to hunt for bugs.
We had hearty pancake breakfasts cooked on our deluxe camping / canning stove. My brother went to culinary arts school, and cooks professionally, so we let him take over the pancakes. He made these great kielbasa sausages one night wrapped in red peppers and dough and baked in foil over the campfire. I learned a lot about camp cooking from him on this trip. I loved our camp kitchen view off the covered porch of the mossy woods with all the gnarled roots and nurse logs. The kids had a great time climbing up the natural staircases of roots to the top of logs and hiding under tree caves while we prepared hearty camping meals.
We explored a little to the South of the cape, and found a small sand dune area with nice beaches along a river estuary. It was such a sunny day the kids kicked off their shoes and rolled up their jeans to wade at the edge of the tide. We also discovered a small island nearby called Whalen Island where you can hike a loop trail, or beach walk around the perimeter and watch birds in the wildlife preserve.
My daughter and her soon-to-be aunt created an intricate village of sand huts with gardens, roads and walls. This was a great activity, since the kids are studying house and shelter construction in their class at the Waldorf School. If only we could have taken this home with us to turn in for her report!
I think the kids really enjoyed hanging out with their uncle too. We did a lot of walking and talking along the beach, and catching up on life.
In the afternoon, we headed into Tillamook for some cheese tasting. Being the food appreciating folks that we all are, we could think of no better way to spend an afternoon. We started at Blue Heron French Cheese Company to sample their brie cheeses, mustards, jams, dips and sauces. For only 2 dollars you can sample four Oregon wines off of their very substantial list, which includes a lot of my favorite fruit wines. Still more exciting is the petting farm outside with sheep, goats, emu, geese, peacocks, and a large assortment of fancy chickens. Then you can poke around the collection of old farm vehicles, tractors and a vintage double-decker bus and enjoy a picnic beside the lush green fields of cows munching away, with the Coast Range mountains for a backdrop. It has always been a favorite stop of mine on Oregon Coast road trips, with all that good wine and cheese and little bantam chickens running about. I’ve gotten a lot of chicken inspiration from that place over the years.
At the Tillamook Cheese Factory we enjoyed the self-guided tour through an observation deck above the cheese extravaganza that goes on there. 40 pound blocks of cheese come in on conveyor belts where they are cut down to size, packaged and inspected for quality along the way. You can watch the whole process from above. Then we sampled a variety of cheese cubes on toothpicks, and had ice cream and sorbet cones to round out the experience.
The weather mostly cooperated with clear, sunny days and nighttime rainstorms, but we were caught in a downpour on our last morning’s hike, and all huddled under a thick stand of shore pines where my daughter snapped this family photo. What a bunch of adventurers! I have so many fond memories of camping with my brother growing up, and I look forward to building some of those camping memories for the next generation.
You can find out more about Cape Lookout State Park on their website here: http://www.oregonstateparks.org/park_186.php.
There’s a lot of good information on the local hiking trails and updates on those snazzy new cabins I mentioned. You can also make reservations online for the yurts and cabins, although I suggest planning ahead on that as the proximity to Portland makes this a popular destination during warmer months. I make our winter reservations in December. I also hear it’s a good location for whale watching and beachcombing for glass floats.
You can also check out the Tillamook Cheese Factory’s website for information and hours here:
And the Blue Heron French Cheese Company here:
What a wonderful time it looks like you all had! Such happy memories you are creating for your children :0)
cape lookout is our favorite yurting destination. 🙂 perhaps you slept in one of the same yurts we have camped in! what a cute little bat. and such a nice way to spend time with family.