Sunday, July 12, 2009

Up the coast in Oregon, The Chocolate Factory and Print Museum

We traveled north on Oregon Highway 101, a 2 lane road most of the way, but a good road for sightseeing. The big plus on this road is that it follows the Pacific Coast and offers many gorgeous sights. Our Tour worked well and we had no problems, although I would pull on to some of the overlooks and let any traffic that was behind me go by.


The overlooks were great and offers many views like this of the coast. We were surprised at how rugged the coast is in most places.


These large rocks are typical of the coast line and it is very challenging to take a boat into some of these spots. There are also very few natural ports along the coast, so it is easy to see why settlements developed on rivers and the few ports that were available.


We did some exploring in the Coos Bay, OR area, and wouldn't you know it -- there was a real chocolate factory! Naturally, Orinda had to stop.
Through the glass wall, you could see how the various chocolates were made -- very cool. This is a rather small factory, but lots of fun to tour through.

And, YES, they offered SAMPLES! What a deal. We tried LOTS of difference chocolates and of course, had to bring some of the best ones along. What a great surprise this was.

Speaking of surprises, Rick found this small museum -- the Marshfield Sun Printing Museum, which is an original building that was used for printing the local paper starting in the late 1800's. The amazing thing about this is that the building was closed up after the passing of the proprietor and is now a complete printing and newspaper shop of that era.



We were given a"working tour" by our guide who showed how everything worked. Notice that everything is powered by hand -- there is no electricity! All the presses and equipment still work and it was really interesting to see how this took place "back in the day".


Ever wonder where we get all those fonts? Well, here they are -- each drawer is one complete font of metal characters. These all had to be "set" by hand before printing could take place. A very skilled job for sure. This was a great,museum and is very well worth the stop.

No comments: