Attractions

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You really can't miss the Tillamook Air Museum.

Driving into Tillamook on Highway 101, if you miss the huge hanger, with AIR MUSEUM, painted on the side then the jet perched on a pedestal along the highway is sure to catch your notice.

You see, everything about the museum is bigger than life, and if you know the history of the hangar that houses it, you know how appropriate that is.

If I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, then there is a lot of screaming going on at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

While the entire nation is familiar with the award-winning Tillamook cheeses, here in the Pacific Northwest we have the added benefit of enjoying their more than 40 offerings of ice cream.

"Our ice cream is limited to the Pacific Northwest, so that's why we feature it in our visitor center," said Susan Palmer, director of retail operations at the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Mention Tillamook Burn today and the image of a charred, grilled cheese sandwich might come to mind. However, seventy-five years ago, it meant one thing: fire.

I can’t help but notice the crackle from inside the monstrous fireplace. There’s something about a warm fire that tugs at me and whispers “sit, take a moment, relax and enjoy.”

I follow the advice. I’m only a few feet from the front door of the Timberline Lodge. I’ve been throughout the national landmark and had lunch. I need to drive down from Mt. Hood and back to reality. But that fire has its hold on me.

Personally, my favorite tourist attractions are ones where you can do a number of things at once. It just feels like a better use of time when you visit a business or park, and you get a couple of activities in, instead of just one.

That’s what Tollen Farm offers people looking for an “Oregon” experience. From unique and quirky art, to home décor, garden items, farm animals and antiques, the farm is a great way to take home something from the Willamette Valley that is one-of-a-kind.

While many people head to Lincoln City to get their fix of the Oregon Coast, there is another place that is just as easy to enjoy, Tolovana Beach Wayside.

This Oregon State Park is located on the ocean front on the south end of Cannon Beach and offers many of the amenities that beaches in Seaside and Lincoln City offer, and many times has fewer crowds.

Sitting in a grove of trees, overlooking a creek, listening to the birds, bugs and other wildlife, it’s hard to believe this place was slated to be a prison.

Thanks to local officials fighting and lobbying, now are area just west of Wilsonville is a nature area where children learn about nature, and every day hundreds of people bike, walk, stroll or simply sit and talk in a 250-acre nature park.

With three-miles of trails that cover 250 acres, the park is as much educational as it is an outdoor workout area and nature reserve.

A 89-foot waterfall on Tumalo Creek about 20 miles outside of Bend. The park at the base of the falls offers hiking trails, fishing, picnic areas and restrooms. Along the way to the falls are informational kiosks that make it a great trip if you want to learn about the ecology of creeks, forests and fish habitat. 

Started in 1993, the Umpqua Discovery Center is a partnership between the city of Reedsport and volunteers to make an interactive museum that teaches people about the history of the area and the natural beauty surrounding Reedsport along the Oregon Coast.

It was a summer day and laughter filled the bear exhibit at the Umpqua Discovery Center, proving once again this isn’t your normal museum.

Oregon’s first lighthouse located near Winchester Bay is one of the few you can see the inside of the light apparatus and at the same time get a great history lesson, thanks to a team of volunteers. The lighthouse is part of Umpqua River State Park and is managed by Douglas County Parks, which also oversees the museum about a block away in a historic Coast Guard building. 

Speckled throughout any community are the antique and collectible shops that offer old-world treasures for people looking to honor the past.  Every now and then, however, you find a store like this one that is unique - not only in the products it offers, but in its approach.

This is Valley Emporium in Carlton.

This shop is the very epitome of cool, bringing together different wines, sweets and, yes, antiques to downtown Carlton.

One of the original 250 Norway maple trees planted by volunteers along Spruce Street and "S" Avenue in 1923 to commemorate the end of the First World War and to appreciate the returning veterans. The beautiful tree-lined parkway, known as Victory Way, stretches from downtown to Riverside Park. The planting culminated in a large ceremony including singing, a luncheon, and speeches.

There are those people in your life who you just have a hard time buying gifts for.

To be honest, I am one of those people. If I really want something, I am the type of person to work and scrap and buy it for myself.

We all have them in our lives, the mother-in-law that baffles your Christmas shopping list, or the daughter whose tastes are just a mystery.

Well there is an answer, Violet Rose.

“It’s as close as you can get to a magic carpet ride,” says Roger Anderson, owner of Vista Balloon Adventures.

The company, which is based out of Sportsman Airpark in Newberg, Ore., has seven balloons and offers one-hour flights over Yamhill County wine country between April and November each year. Flights are offered every day but Tuesdays, and the entire trip takes about three hours and includes a “sparkling” breakfast and complimentary souvenir to remind you of the trip.

Length: 140 miles / 224.0 km
Time to Allow: Plan for 5 to 7 hours to tour this byway.
Fees: There is a fee to enter Crater Lake National Park.

Jim and Stephanie Rose stood outside in the rain, with a large pink box waving it around like they had won the lottery.

This isn’t an unfamiliar site in the Old Town District of Portland, where one of stalwarts of Portland tourism sits – Voodoo Doughnuts.

Known for its edgy doughnuts, voodoo magic theme, and lines that can sometimes circle the block, Voodoo is the quintessential Portland business. Heck, they are even across the street from the iconic “Keep Portland Weird” mural.

Judge William Waldo, the son of an 1842 pioneer, planted this sequoia in 1872. Waldo made efforts during his lifetime to preserve the tree and over time others have saved it from the encroaching street system. In 1936 the Salem City Council declared the site, a twelve by twenty foot plot of land, a City Park.

It is located at 605 Summer Street NE (at the corner of Summer and Union Streets) in Salem, Oregon.

On September 13, 1888, after traveling two months along the spine of the Cascade Range, Judge John B. Waldo, Oregon's foremost nineteenth-century conservationist, and his companions rested at Island Lake and carved their names into the mountain hemlock near the southeast shore of the lake. This trip provided first-hand information for Waldo to use in his lobbying efforts to support legislation designating the 4.5 million-acre Cascade Forest Reserve in 1893. That reserve is now represented by the Mt. Hood, Deschutes, Willamette, Umpqua, Winema, and Rogue River national forests.

Wanderlust Tours exists to vibrantly share the natural and cultural history of the Central Oregon region to small groups of interested guests while touring via canoeing, kayaking, caving, volcano tours, snowshoeing, hiking and nature-based sightseeing.