Part 3 of the 2008 Oregon Adventure

Wednesday September 10, 2008

I’m up just after 0600 to a brilliant and clear sky. I shower, and head for an unremarkable breakfast of two eggs poached medium, sausage links, greasy hash browns, and tea. It's such an unremarkable meal I immediately forget the name of the place.

This is Spruce Goose Day, the day I head back over the mountains to McMinnville, in the heart of the Willamette Valley. Waiting there is the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.

I check out of the hotel and have a quick conversation about the beautiful crisp morning weather with the desk clerk. She says it's a bit cold for her as she's from the Deep South. I ask how she wound up in Oregon, and she says she stopped on her way back from a year in Alaska. “Home soon!” she says.

It's just after 0800 as I once again gas up the car at the Shell station, resisting the ingrained habit to fill it up myself. I check the tire air and head east on HWY 26. Valdy is singing about how frustrated and disappointing it is to be a “Dirty Old Man”. Hwy 26 switches from 2 to 3, and occasionally to 4 lanes as we head over the mountains. It's a beautiful driving road but not overly scenic. Just past the summit I find a pull out and stop to take some pictures. The view is only there because of a very recent clear cut. Logging is big here.

I turn south onto Hwy 47 just past the hamlet of Manning. The Willamette Valley is broad, rolling hills, and full of wineries. Signs abound at every crossroad, directing you to yet another winery. This takes me a bit by surprise. With so many wineries it must be a major industry, but I had only thought that it was a small, almost boutique, industry. Someone needs to get the word out.

I don't stop at the wineries. It had been a passing thought in the original planning, but I have always thought wine tastings should be a couple thing, along with Bed and Breakfasts, and long walks on the beach. Maybe I'll come back some time to enjoy the wineries. Soon, when I retire from the daily madness, I'll have all the time in the world.

Nav directs me to the Museum but I miss the turns. I come back to it through a few side streets until I can re-join Hwy 18. I reach the Museum at 1030.

The Museum is almost new and looks it. It consists of three spacious, modern buildings, The Aviation Museum, the Space Museum, and the IMAX Theatre. The admission price is a bit of a shock at $30 for both museums and the IMAX movie. It's more than I’ve paid at other places of similar size, but I really want to see the Spruce Goose. And see it I do!

It dominates the Aviation Museum. And dominate is not the word that does it justice. Its original aircraft designation was the Hercules HK-1. And its Herculean proportions are the truth of its name.

Parked under the left wing, dwarflike in comparison, is a Douglas DC 3 which was a dominant airplane in air travel when the HK1 was conceived and built.

 Made entirely out of wood I am struck by its smooth, rounded, seemingly Art Deco lines. With the knowledge that this thing actually once flew, albeit very briefly, it has an artful brilliance of design, but it's actual story is one of excess, and ego. 

The overall dimensions of length and width are within a couple of feet of a Boeing 747. I was hoping to see the cockpit but am disappointed to learn that to visit the cockpit and get your picture taken cost's a whack of money over and above the price of the admission. It's impossible to stand under this plane and not feel tiny.

The eight Pratt and Whitney Wasp Major radial engines look quite incongruous. The plane seems as if it should have some other means of propulsion, be it jet engines, antigrav lifts, or rockets. Something a lot sexier than four bladed propellers.

I am quite taken with the museum collection. Buried in behind a SeaBee and a P-51 Mustang I spy a DeHavilland Vampire, one of the very first jet fighters. I am trying to get a clear shot when a Docent asks “Which plane are you trying to get?” I tell him and he lets me past the chain barrier to get a better look.

The Docents are a gold mine of fact and trivia and are happy to impart details to anyone who will ask.

The Evergreen collection is large and varied. Everything from a replica Wright Flyer to the Beech Starship 1 2000A. World War 2 displays vary from a Spitfire, Messerschmitt  bF 109, Boeing B-17, North American B-25, Curtiss P-40, a Jeep, an original Link Trainer including control set, and a Grumman F6F Hellcat. This huge space holds a lot of aircraft.

I leave the Aviation Museum at 1215 and walk across the parking lot to the Space Museum. It's not as heavily populated with exhibits. I am a bit disappointed. A lot of the displays are replicas not originals. The Apollo capsule hanging from the Sea King is a reproduction, the Sea King is real.

The Lunar Lander and Lunar Rover are replicas as well. The Museum Of Flight in Seattle has former training units.

 The Titan missiles are real.

The SR-71 is also real. The Blackbird was, and still is the greatest achievement in high speed atmospheric aviation. First flown in the early 1960's and retired from Air Force/CIA service in 1990, it was the front line reconnaissance aircraft. It was literally faster than a speeding bullet. On its final flight prior to retirement from active military service, it flew from Los Angeles to Washington DC in 68 minutes 18 seconds. NASA still maintains a couple of SR-71's at their Dryden Research facility for high altitude and high speed research.

 Hanging from the ceiling is a North American X-15, America's first sub-orbital rocket plane. So many records, and so much wonderful science was done by the X-15 program it's hard to tell the story quickly. So I won't. For more information go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15

I leave the Space Museum just in time to make my IMAX movie. It's a 3D presentation on activities aboard the ISS (International Space Station). This will be my first IMAX 3D experience. And I suggest you try it, especially with the Space Station movie. Not only do you get the 3D effect but the weightless 3D is delightfully disorienting. I have to remove the special glasses and close my eyes several times to reset my equilibrium. I am grateful for two things. First that I glad I didn't choose astronaut on my career form since I couldn't pass the first test of weightlessness. Second, that I didn’t have lunch.

After the movie I wander through the plane displays outside. A McDonnell Douglas F-15, Bell UH-1 Huey and AH-1 Cobra Helicopters, and a Convair F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane often overlooked for its contribution to the development of “integrated weapon systems”.

By now it's 1430 and I'm done. The sun is hot as I wander around outside and I'm thinking it's time to go downtown and check out McMinnville proper.

Nav guides me on the most direct route, a bunch of side streets where I have to cross main roads. I think the woman in the machine has it in for me! Eventually I park the car on tree lined 2^nd Avenue. There are galleries and book shops here. I find some galleries but they seem to concentrate on new age and recycled hippie art. In a framing shop I find some prints of the Spruce Goose and a Pan American Clipper. And they cost a LOT less than the same thing I saw in the Museum Gift Shop.

 I spend a quiet hour wandering the street. It's a cute place but I don't see a lot of substance in the shops. I've seen towns like this before, but this is a quiet afternoon of distraction and I'm glad I came.

I have Nav plot me a course to the McMinnville Comfort Inn And Suites where I have a reservation. I wind up back out by the Museum. I check in and consult the hotel guide as to what's in the neighborhood for dinner, and I find not much. I'm a ways out of town and I'm not having Burger King for dinner.

I consult Nav to see what's in her database. I also want to fill up the car. I drive back into McMinnville and stop at a Union 76. While a young lad fills up the car I lay in some provisions, beer and peanuts. I'm not sure what I'm heading into tomorrow, so having something on hand is a precaution.

Dinner is a burger at an overpriced pub. The burger is very good but the German potato salad is more like potato's awash in white vinegar.

I have a couple of Pilsners brewed on the premises. Not bad, but they not up to the taste of Mirror Pond, Rip Curl, or Droptop Amber's.

Back at the hotel I am just in time to catch the news on the local NBC affiliate. It looks a lot like news on the Seattle NBC affiliate. When I get home I'll check to see if they are a BELO owned station. The news is the same as at home. But with a flashier graphics presentation and a strong live presence from multiple locations.

I'm asleep by 8. The TV has bored me into it.