On October 4th we left the coast to head inland to McMinnville. At some point on our journey to Oregon I recalled that the Evergreen Aviation Museum was out there; “there” turned out to be McMinnville. Evergreen’s star attraction – and the reason I wanted to go – is the Spruce Goose, which is a massive (it has the largest wingspan of any aircraft ever made) seaplane built back at the end of WW2. Howard Hughes saw it through to completion even though the war was over, and he was the only person to ever fly it. It flew only once, on what was supposed to be a high-speed taxi test. The road that the GPS routed us on to get there was not campervan friendly – twists on top of corners on top of bumps for 20 miles. We finally made it to the museum and were blown away at the size of it all. There were four massive buildings – massive enough to put a 747 on top of one – with planes spilling out onto the lawn. It was $25 per person to get in (kids were free), which was fine, but then they nail you for another $25 if you want to see the flight deck of the Spruce Goose, again, the main attraction of the place. The kids loved the childrens’ area of the museum, but quickly became bored once we were walking in the actual museum. A lot of neat planes in there, including the first ever Van’s RV-6, donated by Richard “Van” VanGrunsven himself. We would see him the next day. We finished our museum visit on the playground, which the kids spotted from 150yds away.
By this point in the trip, our laundry bag was at max capacity. Jennifer found a private/commercial RV park with laundry facilities that was close to the Aurora Airport, which is where we needed to be the next morning. It was the first non-national/state/forest service/county park campground that we would stay in. When we got there and checked-in, we realized that we were staying in a trailer park – the kind where the trailers were literally camping trailers. People lived there; they didn’t come in for one night like we were. Most of them didn’t even have pick-up trucks to move their trailer if they wanted to. It was weird, a bit uncomfortable even. We were there for a purpose, though, and loaded up every open washing machine we could find, cranking out our laundry in about three hours.
We were up and moving earlyish the morning of October 5th. The main reason we stayed in the trailerhood in Aurora was to be near the Aurora Airport, the home of Van’s Aircraft. Both of the planes that we’ve owned have been Vans. Since we were all the way out in Oregon, I figured that a visit to the mothership was in order. We pulled in at 8:30am for a tour at 9am. As we turned to parallel the runway on our way to their hangar/factory, I recognized the distinct profile of a Vans airplane on short final. I slowed down and let the plane pull along beside us just before it touched down. As it turned out, it was Richard “Van” VanGrunsven himself, flying into work for the day in his RV-12. Not a bad daily commute, and not a bad start to our tour. Van is 76 and still very much involved in his company. Our tour began promptly at 9; it was just us and Sterling, our tour guide. He walked us through the massive parts storage area, showed us the manufacturing floor, and then took us out to the hangar to see the company planes. I am pretty familiar with all of the models that they make, but was curious to see and sit in their newest offering, the RV-14. Cooper and Brooks were excited to sit in the yellow RV-7A, a plane that I used to have a picture of on my notebook when I was a student at USF. With our tour complete by 9:30am, we hopped back in the RV and headed for a fall festival / pumpkin patch in the next town.
