You Missed Cheese Days Again
About two hours south of Seattle, just off I-5, sits the little hamlet of Toledo, which annually celebrates Cheese Days the second weekend in July. There's some historical background -- the festival honors a local cheese factory which closed its doors in the 1940s -- but mainly it's just an excuse for some small town fun: there's a parade, frog-jumping contest, golf tournament, kids' carnival, car show, quilt show and, yes, "cow plop bingo."
We just caught the parade, then high-tailed it off to the
Cowlitz River, where we met up with about 30 other rafters from Seattle and Portland. Rafts inflated, more or less, we headed up to Barrier Dam to begin our float, about 5-1/2 hours, back to Toledo. During the summer, the Cowlitz is not exactly untamed, so for long portions -- except for navigating around snags in shallow water -- the float resembles a traveling pool party.
Of course it's not all beer-soaked adventures on the low seas. There are nutria around, for one thing. We didn't see any, but we did see a kingfisher, osprey, and heron.
And fish were jumping, as the song says. With a salmon hatchery and Barrier Dam and a trout hatchery further downstream, the Cowlitz is rich in fish, especially summer steelhead. At various points, the riverbank is lined with anglers, and fishing boats can make for an impromptu obstacle course. We saw some sizeable steelhead being pulled from the water. (Note to the two women fishing in bikinis: our group was chanting: "Show us your FISH!")
Eventually, as the beer supplies run low, any good river trip brings your soul to quiet contemplation:
