First, I'm glad that what you saw in the Northwest, you enjoyed. The old Columbia River Highway is a premier drive, and few if any other roads offer the spectacular scenery it does. I hope it wasn't too busy.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on the Evergreen and Tillamook museums. We get down the Oregon Coast occasionally and I often think of stopping on the way. It has been at least ten years since I was in the Tillamook facility, and I have never been to the Evergreen, but I want to at least see the Spruce Goose.
Dave
Keep the Show on the Road!
Each is quite different, and enjoyable in their own way. The Evergreen museum is new, state-of-the-art, and huge. Where else can you find a museum/water park combo? Not to mention a 747 water slide!
On the museum side there are two large hangars, an IMAX theater between them, and scattered aircraft displayed outdoors. It even dwarfs my local Pima Air and Space Museum, which is one of the larger ones in the country.
One note, though: To go up onto the flight deck of the Goose is an extra charge. And they don't have the mannequin of Howard at the controls, like they did in Long Beach, which is where I first saw the plane back in '85.
The Tillamook museum has a totally different charm. Much more of a rustic, 'let's make a museum' kind of charm. Even though they have a large collection of aircraft, the immense size of that WWII blimp hangar makes it look small!
It reminds me of the Airline History Museum at the old TWA hangars at the old downtown Kansas City airport in a way, with the 'do it yourself' type of feel.
Both are well worth a visit.
An unexpected gem of this trip was the small, open by appointment, Classic Aviation Museum at the Hillsboro airport. This one is really kind of a 'rich man's hobby' type of place, as most of the planes in it are owned by one person who allows them to be visited. He has some rare metal, like a 19850's French jet trainer called the Fouga Magister, and several MiGs and F-104 Starfighters.
This is really a 'hands-on' museum, as one can touch and poke around the aircraft, all of which are either flyable or in the process of being restored to flying condition. My hands smelled like Skydrol (hydraulic fluid) when I left.
The fifth area museum was the Pearson Air Museum, on the grounds of Pearson Field at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver WA. A friend flew his Beech Sundowner out to Pearson from Indiana for this event we attended in Portland (Airliners International), and the only flying Boeing 40, a 1928 mail/four passenger aircraft, was there for the event as well, and offering rides. Pearson is one of the oldest operatiog airfields in the US, dating back to WWI era, and was Portland's first airport. The old Army Air Corps hangar is now the museum, and it too has interesting displays and aircraft.
Proibably more detail than you asked for, but hope this is interesting to you. And the WAAAM was terrific, to get this back to roads and cars as well as airplanes!
