Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversary) part 11: The Quilt Squares of Tillamook County

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When we finally got into Tillamook,where we were destined to spend the night. I saw these patterned squares on buildings all about town.

I started calling them 'hex signs', as in: since when does Tillamook decorate its building with hex signs? That, as far as I knew, was a Pennsylvania Dutch thing, and those were all circles, not unlike a mandala.

There were several examples I caught in passing:

This one, on a lumber and building supply house just north of the city center, on the north bank of Hoquarton Slough (or, as the sign on the bridge deemed it, "The Hoquarton"):

... and this one, which was on the side of the motel (the Red Apple Inn) where we spent the night:

... and this pretty one, which I caught while very much in motion, as we left town going south:

... and this one, too, on a barn a couple miles south of town along US 101:

We were eager to go south, so we didn't explore any further. After we got home, I web-searched for "Tillamook County Hex Symbols" and came up empty-handed. Just before I wrote this, however, I did zoom in on the little name plate in the lower left of the one on the motel and it begat a web search that bore fruit.

They're large renditions of quilt squares, which led me to discover that the "Tillamook County Quilt Trail" is a thing ... with a Facebook page as well as a web site that'll tell you everything you need to know about it. The TL;DR abstract of it it is summed up on the webpage thus: to create a tie between our rich local history and the wonderful talents of local quilters. with the added benefit of encouraging tourists to spend a little more time in our community.

I find that incredibly charming. I don't see how anyone could not.