After Judy's water aerobics we drove to McMinnville (50 miles) to the above museum. Judy discovered Howard Hughes Flying Boat (Spruce Goose) is there so we had to go. If you blowup the interior picture of the Goose you'll see colorful beach balls in the bottom right corner. Howard had lots of them placed inside the Goose in several locations to ensure it wouldn't sink. The museum started as a winery and purchased the Spruce Goose for $1 after winning the contest committing to move it here to a new museum. The building is impressive and chuck full of planes & aviation history stuff. They have a B17, Corsair, WWI Jenny & Sopwith Camel, Spitfire, MIG-15 & 17, ME109, Ford Tri-Motor, Avenger, Hellcat, SR71 Blackbird, Phantom, B-25, P-51, a Russian space capsule, well over 60 planes. There' also a new IMAX theater there and they are opening a new big building this summer housing a Titan ICBM in it's silo and they are quite optimistic they will get a space shuttle when the are retired, scheduled for 2010. We also filled up the truck for over $230, the tanks were a little over half empty. Diesel was cheap, $4.23, at an Indian reservation & casino. The pics are of the Spruce Goose (built out of birch wood), ME109, Spitfire, B17, & Corsair.
