The Evergreen Aviation Museum

We were driving the last leg of a 4-day road trip, in a van full of accumulated tourist maps and junk food wrappers and smelly hiking clothes. It was getting late, and we were behind schedule - it looked like we wouldn’t be getting to Seattle until well past midnight.

And yet, when we rocketed past the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon and saw the Spruce Goose shining like a beacon from within the hangar-like glass structure, we couldn’t resist turning around to take a closer look. The museum was closed for the night, but we walked around it and pressed our noses against the glass.

Howard Hughes’ famous plane, an enormous flying boat made almost completely of wood, is a touchstone of aviation history despite the fact that it only ever made one short flight. Looking up at it, one can’t help but be impressed that they got it up into the air at all. The museum has other delights as well, like sleek fighter jets, old wooden prop planes, and bizarre little helicopters hanging from the rafters. The building is small, but there’s a lot crammed in there, and more scattered around the grounds.

So if you’re the type that gets jazzed by flying machines, drive down to McMinnville and have a look.

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