I’m out of order with this, but after some jet-lagged sleep, other things drew my attention today.
Sunday was my last day in Oregon, and like most it dawned wet. I hope it is just the time of year I was there. I’d hate to know people lived their entire lives like that.
At any rate, I went north again, passing by most of the things I had seen earlier. My destination was Tillamook, and the Tillmook Air Museum. But first, I had to pass through the Nestucca Valley:
I said it was wet–I didn’t say it wasn’t pretty. Eventually I arrived at my destination. It’s a big place:
Yep, that’s me, living dangerously again. It’s in my genes. To give you some idea of how big this place is, it’s a old World War II blimp hanger. 1072′ long, 192′ tall and 297′ wide if memory serves. It has 11 acres of roof, and took 2,000,000 board feet of lumber to build.
Yeah, it’s made of wood.
And that picture is from 3/4 of a mile away, heading toward the museum from town (taken on the return trip.)
They have planes. Lots of planes. This picture doesn’t do justice to the number, but I was backed up as far as I could go. This is half the planes that were visible. There were more under the big white tent. For scale, that tent is as tall as the tail of an A-26 Intruder or a PBY Catalina. I know because there was one of each under there, along with an SBD Dauntless and a number of other fun things.
At any rate, I eventually made my way back to my temporary digs and settled in. I had to get up early to head back to Portland and home. The trip was like most airline travel–crammed into an aerial cattle car–but it went smoothly and I arrived home safely and grateful to be among family again.
At least some of the scenery on the flight was decent…
