Our Wood Mountain boss, Randy, decided to have mercy on us today (Friday), and treated the crew to a road trip in the Willamette Valley. No one declined the offer.
First, we visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum complex in McMinnville. Some ex-billionaire, ex-fighter pilot local guy built the museum campus, which is comprised of several buildings: a huge one, featuring the history of aviation; a second one, focused on aerospace; and, a third one, containing an IMAX theatre. There’s even a waterpark there, with a Boeing 747 perched on the roof. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our swim trunks.
As I said, the first building is very large because it houses, among many other aircraft, Howard Hughes’ famous “Spruce Goose” prototype seaplane. (I guess it wore out its welcome in Long Beach, where it used to sit next to the Queen Mary. Hmmmm…)
This enormous troop carrier (as envisioned during its construction), with a wingspan of 320′, is wider than the biggest passenger aircraft ever constructed.
It was powered by eight huge 28-cylinder engines, each producing over 3,000 horsepower.
Because WWII was going on when Hughes took on the task of building the plane, strategic materials were in short supply; he couldn’t use aluminum, for example. So, he devised his own light, super-strong material: Durowood. It was plywood, using very thin layers of spruce wood, glued together, that could be bent to shape. The outside wooden “skin” of the fuselage is only about the width of my pinkie finger.
The plane flew once, in Long Beach Harbor, in 1947, for ten seconds, putting the lie to the skeptics and government officials who had badmouthed the “crook”.
There were all sorts of cool things in this aviation museum.
I liked the photo of “Marilyn Monroe”, when she was Norma Jean Dougherty, aged 19 in 1945, working in an aircraft factory in Southern California. Her job: spray-painting airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes.
There were all sorts of early airplanes in the museum, including Wright Brothers replica, a Spirit of St. Louis replica, a real Sopwith Camel from WWI, and many others.
Most of the museum featured warplanes from WWII onward, including some parked outside on the grass.
This is a Navy Tomcat, made famous in the movie “Top Gun”.
We watched an excellent 45-minute IMAX movie on Red Flag fighter pilot training (similar to Top Gun exercises) at Nellis AFB in Nevada.
After that, we trekked over to the Aerospace Museum (a few hundred yards). Within that large building, the story of man’s exploration of outer space was excellently presented with all sorts of objects like rocket engines, space capsules, lunar rovers, multi-stage rockets, etc. It was quite impressive.
They also had an SR-71 “Blackbird” on display. It is the world’s fastest and highest flying air-breathing production aircraft, capable of flying 2,200 miles per hour and able to reach an altitude of 85,000 feet. It is an aerial photography “spy plane”, which was used before satellite photography came into vogue.
The museum also had a nice electric shuttle cart, which Randy and the guys checked out.
After the Evergreen Aviation Museum foray, Randy took us to lunch at Golden Valley Brewery in Beaverton. Very nice, with good food. I had the Cubano sandwich. Yummy.
Some of the guys sampled the craft beers.
Randy’s brother, Joe, a Realtor, spent his lunch trying to close a deal in Payson, Arizona.
After that, we finished off the day by doing some wine tasting at Stoller Vineyards in Dayton. We sampled some Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Reisling wines which (and, I’m not a wine junkie) were tasty, and enjoyed the property, which was located in some nice rolling hills, reminding me of the Napa Valley.
We had a nice Hungarian hostess who kept the glasses full. Don seemed to know some of the wine lingo.
I think Randy and Don purchased a bottle or two to take back to our frat house in the hazelnut orchard.
This road trip was just what we needed after a few hectic days at the Christmas tree assembly lot.
Thank you, Randy Wood…you Da Man!!
