Kit and Carol on the Road

A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Spruce Goose Museum (it actually has another name but I never remember it) . We were invited as guests a couple years ago when we rented a View out of McMinneville. We took a rain check, and this trip it was not only raining but pouring. The parking lot was an inland sea. Anyway we got in free as "members" so it was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. We went on a guided tour which is always a good way to go when they are offered--better than reading all those signs. I even learned some things about the Wright Bros flyer --even though we've been to a special Wright exhibit at the Smithsonian--and to the National Historic Park in North Carolina. Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose is pretty awesome--it is not made of spruce but birch. They were not allowed to use metal because of the war effort. It was to be a flying ship for troop transport but never finished after it's first short flight. I was more impressed with the B17 which men actually flew in during WWII. It was a flying tin can. We also saw an old airliner that made today's crowded planes look palatial. I'll add a few photos. I learned how technologically backward I am. I was wearing my NASA hat and one of the docents (as in man much older than I) pulled out his cell phone and showed me a slide show of his trip to the Kennedy Space Center and another space center in Alabama.