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| Immaculate grounds and facilities at Evergreen Aviation. |
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| Moon rover. |
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| U.S. copy of the V-1, the German flying bomb. Basically the first cruise missile. (All of this said matter-of-factly by Mr. T, off the top of his head. I'm telling you, he's a walking aviation encyclopedia.) |
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| A gigantic missile. |
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| Two flights down to the base of the gigantic missile. |
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| The beauty of visiting friends: pictures of us that are not self-portraits. |
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| Missile bits. |
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| Helicopters were used to retrieve capsules from the ocean. I love the conveniently placed directions for those wearing parachutes. |
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| A giant computer if memory serves. |
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| I admit, the space stuff has been historically less engaging for me, but I really enjoyed learning more about space flight. |
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| Having seen the materials up close, I'm awed by the audacity and nerve of astronauts, especially those who went first. |
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| Loved the many shapes and colors. |
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| A photo nerd's paradise. |
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| Have never ridden in a copter. |
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| Not sure I want to really! |
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| I don't see the appeal. |
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| F-4 Phantom |
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| Yours truly and an F-15. |
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| The front of a learjet I think. |
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| SR-71 spy plane. Such a crazy looking contraption. |
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| Mr. T and Taylor. The amount of aviation knowledge in those brains is astounding. |
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| Pointy bits on the SR-71. |
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| Fuselage of a Global Hawk. Looks like a whale to me! |
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| A drone, the identity of which stumped Mr. T and Taylor. |
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| After meandering the space museum, we wandered to the air museum side and I saw the Spruce Goose for the first time. Yikes, she's a big girl! |
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| The DC-3 looks DINKY nestled under the Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose. |
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| This was someone's 21st birthday present. Can you imagine? |
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| B-17, one of my favorites. |
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| Gigantor 400,000 pound wooden flying boat. |
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| Would that every air museum have such beautiful natural light. |
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| Went a little hog wild with the shooting. I can rarely help myself with such subjects. |
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| The Hercules has a 320-foot wingspan and was commissioned by the U.S. government during World War II to transport cargo and troops. The rub? It had to be constructed with non-wartime critical materials aka using wood instead of metal. |
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| That sucker has eight R-4360 engines, aka the engines that power Seafury and Reno Air Racer, Dreadnought. (Check out that beast here) |
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| Inside shot, looking down toward the tail. |
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| Looking down a wing. Apparently mechanics were stationed inside the wings to monitor the engines. What a ride! |
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| Taylor arranged a private tour of the cabin and cockpit. TOO COOL! |
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| Most of the plane is painted grey and looks like metal, but in places you can see the wood grain. Bizarre. |
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| Spruce Goose cabin. |
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| Original gadgets. |
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| The docent dared me to wear the Hughes fedora. I couldn't disappoint. |
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| Lookin' doofy in a hat. |
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| I *might* have touched the knobs and buttons, but you can't prove it. |
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| Cockpit view. |
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| She flew one time for approximately a minute after barely getting into the air. |
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| The plane featured autopilot. |
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| Mr. T and Taylor were kind to the docent who was on his very first day leading tours. |
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| View from the cockpit hatch. |
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| Happy man. |
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| Slightly complex. |
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| Just give it a little tappy tap. |
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| Wish McMinnville was closer to Sac. We'd probably hang out with this guy and his lovely wife more often! |
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| Stylin' knobbies. |
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| Mr. Hughes' personal airflow tube. |
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| Engines everywhere. |
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| I told you I get carried away, didn't I? |
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| Caption quality goes down when I don't have Mr. T to supply airplane identifiers and factoids. |
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| Since I couldn't quite capture the grandeur, check out the flying boat above. |
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| That tail is 80 feet in the air! |
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| We ran out of time to view the waterpark, but just the 747 on top was a sight to behold. Apparently it has waterslides hooked up to it! |
