Sunday, October 11, 2015

October 10, 2015. George hits the road

LOCATION:  House-sit in Portland, Oregon
WEATHER:  Cloudy. Some rain. Highs in 60s

This day in Potlandia started out beautiful with no sign of the rain predicted until noon when the wind picked up & light showers started. So George decided to go to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum in McMinnville about 1hour away (I wasn't interested).

 Howard Hughes' 'The Spruce Goose' (despite the fact that the plane is made almost entirely of birch) also called The Flying Boat, is housed there. It's the forerunner to the huge cargo planes we have today. Hughes started the design in the early 1940's to take advantage of the need to transport troupe & supplies to Europe. But the process took a long time because of shortages of materials & labor. Since aircraft metal was needed for the war, he built it out of birch plywood. As you can see it is about the size of a 747!  In 1947, Hughes took the 'Goose' out of the hanger for a taxi test on Long Beach Harbor, but to the astonishment of the press on board & watching from shore & on boats he took to the air! It was a short flight of about a mile and only 70' off the water, but proved to his detractors (mainly Congress) that she could fly. The Goose then went back to the climate controlled hanger where Hughes stored it at a cost of $1 million/year until his death in 1976!
The Museum has 3 large buildings housing the Air Museum, Space Museum & the I-Max Theater. Also on the property is an indoor water park with the slides starting inside an Evergreen 747! George said he watched a great National Geographic movie on the history of commercial air travel. He was gone all afternoon & I think he deceived me by saying he was going to the museum because I looked on FB & he was at Deception Brewing in  Dundee, OR!

It poured most of the afternoon here in Beaverton, so I read several books!

DINNER:  Leftover lamb and rice

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