McMinnville and the Evergreen Air Museum 


A Spruce Goose Chase 

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Well, our first full day here and we are already off in the rental car scaring cows and catching the sites. We were going to go up to the Columbia River Gorge today, but it rained overnight and it was still occasionally raining when we got up, so clouds were low and the scenic vistas in the gorge would have been severely hampered. A quick decision was called to implement Plan B. Yes, we had a Plan B in place before we got here.

Plan B called for us to head up to McMinnville to the Evergreen Air Museum which is the current and hopefully final resting place of the Hughes H-4 "Hercules" — aka The Spruce Goose. Plan B is a concession to my love of Aviation and my strong interest in History. Of course, as soon as we headed that way, the clouds started lifting and we were getting occasional splashes of sunlight. We drove up the 5 to Salem and slipped through town on OR 22. As a side note, Oregon has an ugly state capitol building, kind of a cake-shaped tower — or maybe hat-box shaped if you are old enough to remember those — topped with a gold-plated statue. Reminded me of a bowling (or some other sport) trophy. Never got closer than three or four blocks so not sure who or what the statue was, and the building is not very tall, maybe 5 stories.

Only downside to the trip, was a few miles outside Salem where you turn north from 22 onto OR 99W (old US 99W before I-5), there was a bunch of construction going on, but it was Sunday, so just had to watch for lane changes and not for workers and equipment. More problematic though, is the pig farm on the SE corner of the intersection, so make sure your climate control system is set to Recirculate!

North on 99W was a nice drive. Rolling hills of the Willamette Valley, many of them covered with vineyards, as you have entered Oregon's Winery region. Many of the wineries were open for tours and tasting, which might have been nice had my diabetes not put an end to my wine drinking. Driving on, around every curve and over each low crest were more vineyards, orchards, Christmas tree farms and pastures for cattle — not far from where they make Tillamook Cheese — so the drive has the feel of driving across a lush, living quilt with the rolling Coast Range off a little way to the west serving as a headboard and the Cascade Range farther off to the east as the footboard.

Only about an hour into our drive we swing east on OR 18 for about three or four miles along the south edge of McMinnville. The drive has been easy and pleasant, and the Museum is easy to find on the left as you head east on 18 across from McMinnville's airport.

You see pictures and you see the film of its only flight, but you are still unprepared for how utterly huge that plane is. You turn into the property and directly facing you is building that is probably a somewhat over 400 feet wide with a roof-line that runs from three stories high to maybe eight to ten at its peak; most of the front is glass, so it is like a cross between a hanger and a crystal cathedral for aviation. Perfectly framed in the window is the Hercules with you driving straight toward its bow. Every day at work I see Boeing 747-200s either parked at or taking off from UPS International Airport, er, I mean Standiford Field, but they are nothing like this. The Spruce Goose is a special bird.

Admission is $11 for adults (AAA members get a buck off) might seem a bit steep, but remember how much money it must have cost to build this facility and restore and maintain the aircraft, so it is worth it to keep the place going. The Museum probably houses 80 to 100 aircraft in very accessible displays with informative plaques and signs and several video presentations for background and history. The Docents are very friendly and knowledgeable, many of them having helped with the restoration or at the very least having a great love for these aircraft. Displays run from a full-size model of a man-powered model designed by Da Vinci to a replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer to WW I aircraft like the Sopwith Camel and the Curtiss JN4 (Jenny). Planes from early Commercial Aviation are here, like the Ford Tri-Motor from the late 20s and the Douglas DC-3 from the late 30s. WW II aircraft are heavily represented here; B-25, B-17 Flying Fortress, P-51 Mustang, P-38 Lightning, P40, Navy Hellcats, Marine Corps Corsairs, British Supermarine Spitfire and German ME109. I may have left a few out.

All these planes surround the crown jewel of this Museum, the H-4. There are all kinds of displays about the Hercules on the floor as you walk around her telling about Howard Hughes, how he came to build it, and how it came to Oregon. There is even a model of the building where the plane was built, that looked pretty convincing in photos I took if you ignore the minor reflection in the glass protecting it. Oops, almost forgot, the Motion Model used in the filming of the film The Aviator is on display there too. You can also go inside on the cargo deck of the Hercules. Now I have walked through a C-5A Galaxy at the Dayton Airshow a few years ago and the Hercules seems a little smaller on the inside than the C-5, but the H-4 feels a whole lot bigger on the outside.

Believe it or not, there are still more aircraft here. F-4 Phantom from the vietnam era, and two impressive relics from the cold war; Titan II ICBM retired from a nuclear silo in Little Rock, AR and the SR-71 Blackbird. Still other aircraft include planes from the General Aviation sector like a Piper Cub, Boeing Stearman, Beechcraft Staggerwing; several homebuilt planes and a variety of helicopters from Korea era on.

The Museum has a two level gift shop with the upper level being a great place to begin your tour as it affords a great unobstructed view of the Museum floor. The Café here is one of the best in any museum I have been to. Far better than the Smithsonian's or any of the NASA site museums (ie. Kennedy Space Center and Huntsville). Food is simple fare — burgers, hot dogs, smoked sausage, etc., but the quality is very good, and though you order it up at the counter, they bring it out to you. You do have to bus your own table, but then you don't have to leave a tip. Extra feature, the Museum has its own vineyard for producing its own wine through Evergreen Winery and they have tastings adjacent to the Café. You wonder why you see grapes growing along OR 18 as you approach, now you know.

We spent perhaps 4 hours at the Museum, and decided to head back to town and catch a movie and have dinner. Drive back was very nice as the weather had cleared considerably, but still looked messy over toward Mt. Hood and the Gorge behind it, so it was just as well.

Museum rates 10 stars.
 

Posted: Mon - June 5, 2006 at 11:16 AM          

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