Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

[jaybug]

We went to see this museum this past weekend.

Wow!

From ticket price, to everything about the place. Just wow. Except the buildings don't seem to be all that big, until you realize that is a 747 sitting on top of one of the buildings. (FYI, that's for the water park that opens this June)

The Spruce Goose, does not seem all that big, until you about break your neck trying to look up to the top of the tail of the plane. 8 stories up, okay.

My favorite thing is the SR-71 Blackbird there. I love those. I hope we can find ways to get them back in service.

One of the Space Shuttles will be there too. Unless congress sends it somewhere else, I guess. They're just waiting for the fleet to retire. And the company who runs the museum, is the same one that has the 747 that flies the Shuttle from Edwards Air Force base in California, to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Theoretically, they could just fly it to McMinville.

Yeah, it got my space otaku going on! Super Robot Taisen FTW! lol

[lychee-twist]

The SR-71 is one of my favorite aircrafts ever. It's just so freakishly stylish. If you pictured something that can break the sound barrier and then some, that's what I picture.

I just realized that the jet from X-Men: THe Animated Series looks an awful lot like a Blackbird..

It was bizarre to see a Minuteman rocket there. I knew those were huge, but I had no idea HOW huge. It's rather scary to think that that could very well have been a nuke at one point in time. In comparison to Fat Boy and Little John, the amount of damage that a nuke that size could do is absolutely frightening.

I totally nerded over everything Space related there. I'm definitely dumb when it comes to identifying machinery and knowing what they do, but I love learning about stuff that's been in Space and back. There was an unmanned plane from NASA there, and if you looked inside the window, you could easily make out someone's email. Someone else said "If found, please call ###". The NASA engineers had a great sense of humor. You can really sense their well-wishing on that craft.

Spruce Goose, yeah. Very, very impressive. While it is definitely just this awkward, weird plane that barely flew, it's really a great feat of engineering, I think. I got to touch it before it was reassembled at the museum since a family friend of my cousin's stored the wing flaps of the Spruce goose in their warehouse. I couldn't fathom that what I was looking at, these giant wooden slats that stretched many feet down this warehouse, were only a PART of the wing, not the wing itself. Seeing it all put together in person was definitely a worthwhile experience.

Did you climb in the B-12 bomber? It's so cramped! That thing definitely earned its nickname "Flying Fortress".

Jaybug, I think if you haven't already, definitely visit the Seattle Museum of Flight. They've got the 1960's-80's (I think) Air Force one plane that you can climb through, the Concord, another Blackbird, as well as many, many others. They've even got the first biplane from Italy. It's definitely worth a visit, but you'll need a good couple of hours to get through everything. The place is huge!

[jaybug]

IN the X-Men of the 1980s comic book, the name of their plane was Lockheed. And he turned into a dragon and hung out with Kitty Pride. Yeah, it was a direct rip-off of an SR-71. Always steal from the best!

I missed the Minuteman. THe Titan was more my speed. I like going around the earth more than just shooting something. To me more awesome, was how small a Redstone rocket is. We sent guys up to space in those, when we really weren't exactly experts in rocket science. And NO COMPUTERS worth talking about to design, or help operate. Actually in nothing that is there. None of the planes, none of the rockets. Even the Space Shuttle was before Computer Aided Design.

Heck even the F-15 dates to 1968. Before the moon.

I didn't get into any vitamin airplanes. B-12 vitamin, get it? HA! lol Nope. It seemed so much smaller than Lacey's bomber on McLaughllin Blvd. But then Lacey's isn't sitting in a corner behind the Spruce Goose either now is it?

[lychee-twist]

Correction for my post above: Not B-12. Those things are awesome and, man, if I got to see one of those things in person, I would probably cry. I meant B-17.

Also, I probably got the minute man thing wrong. You're right. It is the Titan. You're an expert at subtley pointing out my errors. Haha. Thank you for that.

[jaybug]

Isn't Lacey's B-17 still up in the air along McLaughlin Blvd, just south of downtown Milwaukie? I don't live up there anymore, so I don't know what's what all that much.

For another $4, you can go aboard, and get a special extra tour aboard the Evergreen's B-17. Don't know how much to fly in one. Probably need to start way too big a group to afford it.

You're too pretty to want to go for kill shots. Unless you wear that gol-durned Davy Jones get up again. I so wanted to yell at you and tell you that you were in the wrong convention a couple years back. lol But, um no, I couldn't bear to look at that mask. Might've turned to stone ya know.

[lychee-twist]

Fear not about Jones as I threw him away sadly. Haha. I would have laughed had you told me to go back to ComiCon or the like.

[Trumby]

It's been probably 8 or 9 years since I've been to this, really wanting to go back. Probably will happen with some stuff that's getting planned for later this year..

[jaybug]

Fear not about Jones as I threw him away sadly. Haha. I would have laughed had you told me to go back to ComiCon or the like.

You think you would have laughed at that? You would have died if I suddenly found out you were a girl under all that. The look on my face.

[lychee-twist]

Haha! That was probably one of the biggest surprise reactions I got. I didn't think people would think I was a guy. One woman said I even walk like a guy, and I was walking normally. I was in the "Slightly Anime Dating Game" that year, and I think I threw a couple of people in that room off when I started speaking. I know there was a laugh from the crowd, but I couldn't hear anything so I don't know.

I would have loved to see your reaction. You have no idea.

Anyways, back to planes and jets. There's an air museum between Portland and Seattle, and it's got some really zonked out initials like WAACM or something like that. HAs anyone gone?

[jaybug]

No. The only air museums I know of are Seattle, Evergreen, and in San Diego.

[lychee-twist]

It's called WAAAM. There's a van at my bus stop that has their sticker on the back windshield (which is hard to miss since they seem to like parking about two feet from the line. I digress).

http://www.waaamuseum.org/ There's the website. It looks oldschool! Neat!

[jaybug]

Um, I don't think Hood River is between Seattle and Portland. If it is I better let my mom know she is lost. And that she illegally represented Washington in Salem. Oops. Bad Mom! lol

You just drive down the road from my mom's house, and turn right at Windmaster. I think they have it at the old Drive-In movie theater. It was just getting started a couple years ago. Okay, I guess you don't turn right at Windmaster, you go past it a block or so. Or so, as there are no blocks to go by up there. Only orchards. Which should be blooming any time now. Good time to think about going.

[lychee-twist]

Then it must be something else. I've seen the sign for an air museum each time I go to Seattle. It's not anything flashy, but it's there.

[jaybug]

You sure it wasn't Seattle's Air and Space museum? I know they have a YZ-12 there, I touched it while it was parked overnight in Woodland. Got some fuel on my hands, so that's proof, those things leaked like a sieve.