Thanks to Beverly and Brett for the soft bed and hot shower and the good catch up yesterday. We have not seen them for a decade or more. Beverly was already gone to work this morning so we said our goodbyes to Brett and did our morning search for a good diner. It was a nearby Biscuits Cafe for the win and the food was good.
Deb snagged the last campsite at Beverly Beach so we were good to go on where we are staying tonight, something we usually do the same day. but since it’s Friday and Father’s Day and school is out and everybody is camping, the campsite supply is slim. The main goal today was to go to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum where the Spruce Goose ended up. My brother told me about it and I’m a retired nerd so it turned out to be a perfect stop.
The Spruce Goose was a huge airplane which Howard Hughes developed during World War 2. It is ginormous. The idea was to transport military supplies across the ocean for the war since ships took so long. There was a catch. It could not be made out of aluminum so Hughes decided to make it out of laminated birch wood. Some called it the Birch Bird but the newspapers started calling it the Spruce Goose to make fun of it and the name stuck. The war ended before it was finished but Hughes insisted he was allowed to finish it. They put it on the water to do a simple taxiing maneuver but Hughes decide to “take it up”, rules be damned. He took it airborne for less than a minute to prove that it would fly and it never flew again.
The Goose is the biggest thing in the museum but they have a wonderful historical collection spanning the Wright Brothers to space travel with bi-planes, WW2 planes, Vietnam era planes, DC-3’s, Boeing Jets, helicopters, rockets, lunar lander, SR71 spy planes, etc. We were there from 10 am until mid -afternoon so it ate up most of the day.
The tour guides were for the most part retired pilots who really knew their stuff. The museum is in two giant buildings with lots of large aircraft scattered around the front and back yard. Very impressive.
Next we drove to the coast and took Rt 101 south through several or so coastal towns until we found Beverly Beach and checked in. Deb asked about a second night and they had one site available so we booked two nights here, tonight and tomorrow. We want to be in Sacremento next weekend so we want to spend more time on the ocean this next week.
We did a quick walk around the huge state park and down to the beach. Dinner in the van, reading (a little) and sleep.
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