Willamette Valley
Good friends join us for the final day of our epic journey, beginning at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, home of Howard Hughes’ massive Spruce Goose. Then it’s time to enjoy the fruits of Willamette Valley wine country at Furioso Vineyards.
Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum
It was the beginning of a big day, the last of 17 baseball games in 19 days -- and with the Portland Pickles, no less! It began on a high note as well. Two of my close friends (Adam and Heather) were planning to travel to see family in the area, and they were able to join us for our grand finale.We met them at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, a multi-building facility in McMinnville, Oregon, celebrating the history of aviation. You can't miss it: It's the one with the jet airplane on top of it.
Just outside of the museum is a statue of Michael King Smith, a former Air Force Captain who led the establishment of the museum in 1991 and whose father had founded an aviation services company in the area focused on the commercial use of helicopters. We spent our time in the main building, which showcases historical aircraft with dozens of airplanes from many eras scattered about or suspended from the ceiling.
You don’t really need to ask anyone how to find the museum’s centerpiece attraction, the Spruce Goose. Officially known as the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the massive flying boat completely dominates the exhibit hall at 218 feet, 8 inches long, with a wingspan of 320 feet, 11 inches. The aircraft was built to be a transport plane during World War II, able to carry 750 fully equipped troops or two 30-ton M4 Sherman tanks, but it was not completed until the war had ended.
The brainchild of aircraft designer and business magnate Howard Hughes and cargo-ship builder Henry J. Kaiser, the Spruce Goose was made almost entirely of birch wood, due to wartime aluminum restrictions and worries about its weight. The aircraft made just one flight — in November 1947, with Hughes at the controls and a collection of reporters onboard. It flew for 26 seconds, managing to get just 70 feet off the water, but it helped vindicate Hughes’ use of government funds during Senate War Investigating Committee hearings underway that same year.
In 1990, The Walt Disney Company announced it would be closing its exhibit of the Spruce Goose. Two years later, the Evergreen Museum put forth a winning proposal to build new museum facilities around the aircraft as its central exhibit. Over the next nine years, the plane was disassembled and shipped in pieces by boat and truck to Oregon, where it was fully restored and repainted. The final pieces were put in place in 2001.
We continued our tour of the museum’s excellent collection of aircraft, with interpretive displays describing the culture surrounding the flying community throughout history.
Furioso Vineyards
We had lunch about 15 minutes north in Dundee, then drove up into the surrounding hills to Furioso Vineyards, which is known as much for its fine Pinot Noir as it is for its striking contemporary architecture.
Fourteen-foot-high glass walls provide elevated views of the verdant vines from the tasting room. We enjoyed a selection of five reds, including four Pinot Noirs. Willamette Valley is one of the top regions in the United States for Pinot Noir, with about 69 percent of its planted acreage devoted to the grape.
The floor below!
I stepped outside to enjoy the fresh air and golden poppies, careful not to kick up dust from the red soil on my new shoes. I had my Dad and two of my best friends with me on this last day of an epic journey, plus this gentle scene of vineyards and pines and puffy clouds. I allowed myself to enjoy it for one last moment.