#172 Sand beach recreation area boondock one night, Tillamook cheese

This was one of the scenes on Hwy 1 It was like this a lot

I found Sand beach on free camp.net and proceeded to go down the road towards it. We arrived at what would appear to be a pretty normal Campground.

I didn't know what the draw was here but there is water so you can go boating and fishing and such. It would appear that people like to come here to run their little four-wheelers in the sand. There’s sand and that's a lot of fun and it's kind of like dune buggies and four-wheelers and just having a big time.

As I went through the campground, I noticed one thing it was somewhere around 20 or $30 a night and it had no water or electricity.

I thought to myself well if you like this place because of your dune buggy then you're willing to pay that or if you got a fishing thing you want to do you willing to pay that but are you kidding? Why pay $20 or 30 to boondock.

Boondock means free so you got to be kidding. One of the folks said if you went around the corner and up the hill you would get to a BLM area.

It's free and available so probably someone up there had to be a downside. They might say be careful how you go. Don't go in too deep because it’s very sandy

The other sort of downside was that as you approach the area it was a one-lane up a hill and God forbid you would meet another rig coming at you. I'm glad that didn’t happen as it would have been a problem.

I decided to find my real estate spot where the camping was. I saw several spots that would be fine. I looked and the sand looked greener down the way. The further down you went the looser the sand was. One guy got my attention and suggested be careful because right in here it's hard to sand but it falls off pretty quick right in there and you'll get stuck. I took the guy's advice and settled in and had a nice visit.

It wasn't too long until I saw a guy go past us to find that wonderful little area down below and sure enough, he got stuck up to the axles. I'm not exactly laughing at him but kind of quietly, yes. We would have warned him but he came by with a camper in tow with a little bit of arrogance, kind of bulletproof. That’s the only reason I took pleasure in his misery.

So, like everywhere there is good and unfortunately sometimes bad. It was perfectly cool but it was all sand all the time and so that was a little weird. Bert our cat liked it because it was the biggest litter box on Earth.

So here’s the downside. Right beside us, there is a Dad and Thing One and Thing Two. They had their little four-wheelers with knobby tires. The rules are not mufflers allowed. You are required to be at a minimum of 100 decibels for your 4 wheeler.

Thing one was about maybe 6 years old and the other kid was maybe 8 or 10 and obviously, it's great to see Dad doing stuff with the kids. These things are so loud and I agree I should be ok with it because they are out here to have fun. There's no reason to complain because they're out in the boonies. It's not an official Campground and nobody tells you what you can do.

So I'm saying this just to tell you what it was like, not because I have the right to complain. These guys would start up at like 8 or 9 in the morning with buzz cut buzz loud loud loud exhaust oh my God so loud and then they would scream out towards the big dunes. They would be gone on for 15 to 20 minutes and then come racing back for a Capri Sun and then some M&M's and they would go like Energizer Bunnies all day long. They came back every 20 minutes for a sugar fix and more Capri Sun and again that was the downside. They did stop at dark and that's about all you can ask. It's their territory, not mine I was just here for the day.

For whatever reason, I didn't take a whole lot of pictures or any pictures of the dunes.

We saw Tillamook cheese which we went to as we left Sand Beach . We did the cheese factory tour and actually, there is boondock capability at Tillamook cheese. They allow overnight RV parking but I didn't rush into it it's because it was pretty dang crowded and it was kind of like a dirt version of a Walmart parking lot. It was just really crowded and although possible it wasn't that appealing.

When we arrived at Tillamook the rig was huge and the parking was tiny. I went up the road about half a mile and we found the coolest pullout. I remember thinking we could have stayed there all night. Next, I saw a sign saying no overnight parking. It was fine for a few hours so we parked the rig there for a while we went and did the cheese factory tour. I always get a good feeling when I see Tillamook for sale in stores. I’ll say to myself, how cool I’ve been there.