Welcome to another hot and sunny day (Sunday, 14 Sept) in Tillamook, Oregon.  Today we wanted to get out and see the Air Museum and the local cheese factory… and we did!  Follow along on our fun-filled day with lots of pictures 🙂

Stilla did the Skype thing to Germany with her brother and sister-in-law, Stefan & Annerose while I finished up the previous days blog post and had breakfast.  We got a late start, but finally got on the road around 11 AM.  We set the thermostat for 72 degrees and left the air conditioners on for little Coach since we knew he wouldn’t be allowed into any of our proposed destinations for the day.

Our first stop was the Tillamook Air Museum.  We had stopped by there yesterday to check on rates, hours, and dog-friendliness so you may remember these next two pictures I posted already.

Here’s the giant hangar as viewed from Hwy 101 aka The Pacific Coast Highway.

 

My friend Wikipedia provides more information on the museum.  If you are as interested as I am about this stuff, go to this Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillamook_Air_Museum

The Air Museum also has it’s own website which is a great source for specific aircraft information: http://www.tillamookair.com/aircraft/  Go ahead, click on the link… don’t be afraid.

Here is the hangar door as viewed from the inside.

I noticed this basketball hoop mounted above the hangar door.  Someone had a good sense of humor, it’s probably 200 feet from the ground.  I’d like to see the person that could make that jump shot.

Interior view of the massive hangar.

The museum offered a discount for military and veterans, so we got in for $7 each.  We went into their theater and viewed the 16 minute video on the history of this unique structure.  After watching the film, we spent a long time in the adjoining room that was loaded with dioramas, models, picture boards, and display cases of historical stuff that was related to the hangar and/or WWII.  Sorry, no pictures here… I had to limit the size of today’s post somehow, right?

Here is a picture of a picture depicting what it looked like back in the day when the blimps were inside.

Although you can’t tell from this picture… This was a HUGE billboard mounted on an inside wall of the hangar depicting the varied sizes of blimps.  This hangar was originally built for the K-Class.

There were originally two of these hangars here.  We learned that the other hangar was destroyed in a spectacular fire.  It was being used to store hay from the adjacent farms at the time.

The following pictures are of some of the aircraft we viewed:

We met up again with our neighbor’s from the RV Park… Orman and Susie Claxton!  I mentioned in an earlier post, that we know them from the Alpine Coach Association Group and recent Redmond FMCA Rally that we attended together.  We noticed their coach, a Beaver, when we first pulled into the park so we made sure to park next to them.  We kept bumping into them throughout the day… not a bad thing.

One interesting tidbit we discovered while walking through the museum hangar, is that they have RV’s stored here in the back half.  I figured it must be a way to increase their income.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they let you camp there with hook-ups?

We then walked outside to view the funny looking plane… it was like the proverbial elephant in the room.  Behold a Mini-Guppy.

For you mechanical techno-geeks out there, they had some cool engine displays… some of them cut-outs.  These were really cool.

How about an old V8?  Neat, huh?

Here’s proof that you can put anything on a trailer these days.

We visited the snack bar for an espresso.

And then wandered through the gift shop.  Didn’t find anything I couldn’t live without.

Neat picture of a picture again… this guy flew through the hangar back in 1950 as part of an air show stunt.

 

After we got our fill of all things aviation related – we headed over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory on the other side of town.  It was certainly a popular place as evidenced by the overflowing parking lot.  There were even a few rows of Motorhomes parked on the outside edges.

I just had to join others in getting my picture taken in the VW bus that was part of the lobby display.

View of the inner workings at the cheese factory… pics didn’t take so well through the glass panes.  I remember thinking it’s a good thing we weren’t looking at a sausage factory 🙂

The upstairs hallway with the factory viewing windows on both sides.

There was a long line at the cheese sampling stations.

As a matter of fact, there were long lines everywhere here, in the lobby store, the cafe, the snack bar, the ice cream counter, etc.,  What a popular tourist trap, er, I mean, attraction.

I bought one of these Oregon Coast 101 stickers to add to my collection on the inside of the basement doors of the Urban Escape Vehicle.

We saw Orman & Susie Claxton again with ice-cream in hand while we were here, but no picture this time.

And I almost bought this T-shirt, but decided it wasn’t in the budget.

Next, we drove back into town to check out the Blue Heron Cheese Company.  We had seen an advertisement for free wine and cheese tasting.

There were a couple of cool vehicles on display outside the building.

We met up with Orman & Susie again!  We sampled some wines together and  ended up buying a bottle called “Blue Heron Riesling”.

We got back to the RV Park with plenty of time left to enjoy the sunshine and walk Coach through the campground.  He was VERY happy to see us again after being cooped up all alone for the day 🙁  Everything was fine with him and there were no “surprises” in the Motorhome.  Good dog.

This park has the biggest set of horseshoe pits I’ve ever seen.  Or are these possibly grave sites?  HMMM.

We spent a little time talking to Orman & Susie as the sun went down.  We got a few tips from them on future places to visit and recommendations on RV Parks.  Thanks Orman & Susie!  Hope to see you down the road again soon.  It got cold pretty quick after the sun went down, so we retired to our respective Coaches to call it a night.

I did some research, and called ahead to the Elks Lodge in Florence, OR to reserve a spot for tomorrow.  So another moving day is on tap for Monday.  See you tomorrow.