Tillamook, Oregon

Since our drive down Oregon 101 took us right through Tillamook, we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory even though we have been there before.

 

This is through plexi-glass looking down at the floor on a self-guided tour.  This picture on my camera has a real yellow tint to it.  There were two lines going, and this one was doing loaf cheese -- like the 2 pound Velveeta loaves.  The cheese is coming down the line in big bricks.  The gal on the right is positioning the brick to go through the slicer which is just wires.  We commented to each other how hard it is to slice cheese even with a wire slicer, but this is all very automated.  The people mainly are there to check that everything is working correctly.  The gal on the left is separating the cut up brick into the individual loaves and sending it on its way.  The other line was also doing the same size loaf, but in white cheese.

This picture is from Dave's camera and not as yellow!  Where the lady is in the center, the loaves are going through a wrapping machine, and the guy behind the blue equipment is being sure they are coming out placed correctly on the conveyor belt before they go in the vacuum machine that then seals them.

This room only had two workers and this seemed to be the bricks of cheese being manufactured.  They were then vacuum sealed and I am thinking they went to a cooling room for a while.  I'll admit, I didn't read all of the signs! 
When you exited the upstairs self-guided tour, you got to taste about 5 types of cheese, then you were in the gift shop!  The line for the ice cream (to be purchased) was really, really long, so we didn't stay to get ice cream.