Our stay at this outstanding house-sit has come to an end. An early morning departure and, goodbye Gordy.:(
We had agreed to another house-sit that would start only 4 days after we left Welches. It would give us just enough time to visit a few more points of interest while once again enjoying the comforts and beauty of the Oregon Coast. And so, with the destination of Nehalem Cape State Park in mind, we left Welches with a planned intermediate stops starting in the town of McMinnville to visit the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.
The hardest part of this trip was at the beginning, leaving our Welches house-sit. As we left the Welches house-sit, I watched in my side mirror as the dog that we had just spent the last three weeks with, watched us leave. So much for a stealthy, non-heart breaking departure. Yvette and I stayed pretty quiet for a while, it wasn’t until we reached the town of Sandy 15 minutes later did things feel any better.
Coffee via The Ant Farm Cafe, Sandy, OR.
We grabbed a quick coffee in Sandy then it was off again. By the time we arrived at the aviation museum, it was about nine-thirty in the morning, just after it opened for the day. My sole reason for wanting to visit this place was to see the “Spruce Goose." There was so much more here including an X-15 (though I suspect it was a replica since only 3 were built and one had been destroyed years ago) and a SR-71 as well as many other aircraft.
Evergreen International owns Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. I knew it was going to be good when I saw a 747 mounted on one of the buildings...surrounded by a vineyard.
Be sure to click on the galleries below.
Inside, looking aft in the Spruce Goose
The Spruce Goose dominates the floor!
But wait! There is another building entirely devoted to space flight!
Just an amazing facility! (Be sure to click on the gallery above.)
The Spruce Goose was everything that I had hoped for and read about. It's massive! An amazing structure for it's time. Ironically, there isn't a sliver of spruce on the aircraft, primarily made of birch. Ha!
After a long visit in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, we were off again, this time to the Tillamook Creamery for a tour of the plant and maybe to sample their renowned cheese and ice cream. On the way, we did find a great little country store that sold, of all things, fresh oysters!
For .99/ea., I grabbed 5 “small” ones and once in the parking lot, I finished off two of them. Wow, even though I picked out some small ones, they were still huge! Almost the size of the palm of my hand.
I bought 5 oysters, had 2 on the spot. These oysters were huge and very fresh! Even the onions in this market were huge!
Of course, it was Sunday so as you could probably guess, anything dealing with tourism is going to be busy, but I didn’t think the creamery would be quite THAT busy! Though we did walk through the giant creamery production center, we didn’t bother getting in the long lines for any samples. so after a few photos, it was back on the road for the final hop to Nehalem State Park.
Tillamook Creamery, Tillamook, Oregon.