Day 5 - Visiting Oregon City & Old Friends
We were up and going early today. Lanette was taking her hubby to the hospital for an operation so we cleaned up and when Lanette returned, we hit the road! We had an amazing docent giving us a tour of the town albeit in a big rainstorm. It is wonderful to see Mary meet up with old friends again.
Oregon City and Portland are next to each other.
We started off at Cackamette (where the Clackamas and Willimette rivers join) Park. This scenic park is located at the junction of the Willamette River and the mouth of the Clackamas River in Oregon City. The day use/picnic area includes playground, boat launch, restroom facilities, skatepark, reservable event shelters and RV park area.
The river seems to flood on a "regular" basis.
The ducks were out in full force. The geese seemed to mingle right in the crowd of ducks.
Can you imagine the water being 18 feet higher than this sign?
These are Oregon City flood photos for the years 1890, 1909, 1923, 1927, 1943 and 1964.
That is a lot of water!
Did You Know About The 1996 Flood? An unusual confluence of weather events made the floods particularly severe. The winter preceding the floods had produced abnormally high rainfall and relatively low snowfall. The heavy rains saturated ground soil and raised river levels throughout January 1996.
In late January, a heavy snowstorm padded snow packs throughout the region. This was followed by a deep freeze that lasted for six to ten days. The new layer of snow was quickly melted by a warm subtropical jetstream which arrived on February 6.
The jetstream brought along further rains. The combination of the additional rain, the saturated ground, and the melting snow packs engorged dozens of streams and tributaries, which in turn flooded into the region's major rivers.
The ducks followed the geese.
We walked the path to see the confluence of the two rivers.
They scattered when they spotted Scout.
Scout and I will follow you ladies.
Looking good ladies!
The water was so high the RV park did not allow anyone in the first row.
The George Abernethy Bridge, or simply Abernethy Bridge, is a steel plate and box girder bridge that spans the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, United States, and which carries Interstate 205.
Fishermen are an interesting lot... It was raining.
Scout was having a ball.
We departed the park and went to Willamette Falls. The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world.
Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s (874 m³/s), located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth.
Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.
The Willamette Falls Electric Company (later renamed Portland General Electric) was formed in 1888 to build a hydro-electric generation facility at the falls. Four turbine-driven dynamos were built on the east end of the falls. A 14-mile (23-kilometre) long transmission line to Portland was built, becoming the first long-distance transmission of electrical energy in the United States in 1889.
The falls is a horseshoe shaped block waterfall caused by a basalt shelf in the river floor. The 40 ft (12 m) high and 1500 ft (457 m) wide falls occur 26 river miles (42 km) upstream from the Willamette's confluence with the Columbia River. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lock was a four lock canal and was the oldest continuous operating, multiple lift navigation canal in the United States
The signs were interesting to read.
It was a blustery day!
The plants are still in service.
Did You Know? The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km)[1] east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
End of a 2,000 mile journey
The framework represented a covered wagon!
We are ready to eat.
Ah..... Romance is in the air!
The Smoooooch!
Giddy Up!
Ty and Steve joined us.
Sharing wonderful memories.
Dinner is served!
Great memories/new friendships.
I could not help but order the new type of burrito!
Saying goodbye in the pines! Does that mean we are pineing away?
We are a great looking group!
Did You Know? The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is an aviation museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Its exhibits include the Hughes H-4 Hercules (Spruce Goose) and more than fifty military and civilian aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and spacecraft.
The museum complex includes four main buildings: the original aviation exhibit hall, a large screen (7 stories wide, 6 stories high) digital theater, a second exhibit hall focused on space technology, and a water park.
The museum is located across the street from the former headquarters of Evergreen International Aviation and across Oregon Route 18 from McMinnville Municipal Airport (KMMV).
Amazing 747's were everyplace.
The buildings were huge.
Wait until you see the inside of this building; a goose is hiding there!
Did You Know? In March 1990, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would close the Long Beach, California, exhibit of the Spruce Goose. The Aeroclub of Southern California began looking for a new home for the historic aircraft. In 1992, the Evergreen Museum won the bid with a proposal to build a museum around the aircraft and feature it as a central exhibit.
The disassembly of the aircraft began in August 1992. The parts were sent by ship up the Pacific Ocean, Columbia River, and Willamette River to Dayton where it was transferred to trucks and driven to Evergreen International Aviation. It arrived in February 1993.
For the next eight years, the plane went through detailed restoration. Volunteers removed all the paint, replaced worn parts, and repainted the entire aircraft, among many other tasks.
In September 2000, the main aircraft assemblies were complete. The fuselage, wings, and tail were transported across the highway and into the new museum building, still under construction. Over the next year, crews assembled the wings and tail to the fuselage. These were completed in time for the museum's opening on June 6, 2001. The control surfaces (flaps, ailerons, rudder, and elevators) were assembled later. The last piece was put into place on December 7, 2001.
They fit inside an engine cowling.
Mary
visits the old guys.
What an amazing aircraft.
Following the U.S. entrance into World War II in 1941, the U.S. government commissioned the Hughes Aircraft Company to build a large flying boat capable of carrying men and materials over long distances. The concept for what would become the "Spruce Goose" was originally conceived by the industrialist Henry Kaiser, but Kaiser dropped out of the project early, leaving Hughes and his small team to make the H-4 a reality.
Ready for takeoff!
Because of wartime restrictions on steel, Hughes decided to build his aircraft out of wood laminated with plastic and covered with fabric. Although it was constructed mainly of birch, the use of spruce (along with its white-gray color) would later earn the aircraft the nickname Spruce Goose. It had a wingspan of 320 feet and was powered by eight giant propeller engines.
In 1942, during World War II, Hughes contracted with the U.S. government to design and build an aircraft capable of transporting 700 troops or a load of 60 tons across the Atlantic. Known by various names, including the H-4 Hercules, the Flying Boat and most commonly, the Spruce Goose (a moniker Hughes detested), it had a wingspan of 320 feet and was the largest aircraft ever constructed.
However, the war ended before the plane was completed, and in 1947 Hughes was called to testify before a U.S. Senate committee investigating whether he'd misused millions of dollars in government funds on the project. At the hearings, Hughes said of the Spruce Goose: "I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it's a failure I'll probably leave this country and never come back. And I mean it."
After testifying in Washington, Hughes was determined to show his massive aircraft could fly, and on November 2, 1947, he piloted its first and only flight. The Spruce Goose (the nickname came from the fact it was constructed of wood due to wartime restrictions on steel and aluminum; however, birch, not spruce, was the primary building material) traveled for a mile about 70 feet above the water at Long Beach, California, before landing.
Members of the Senate committee later issued a report criticizing Hughes' handling of the Spruce Goose project but the document proved inconsequential. After the aircraft's lone flight, Hughes shelled out millions to keep it in a climate-controlled Long Beach hangar until his 1976 death.
Gigantic.
Being under someone wing takes on a new meaning.
Huge doesn't even begin to explain this baby!
Four banks of seven cyclinders; 28 cyclinders deliovering 4,000 hp.
In late 1944, Marilyn Monroe was working in a Radioplane factory to help with the war efforts during WWII. While working, Monroe met a photographer from First Motion Picture Unit, which led to a successful pin-up career. From there, the rest is history.
In 1945, she worked at Radioplane Company, which was later acquired by Northrop Aircraft Inc. Her assignments included mounting propellers and inspecting and folding parachutes.
Her job was to put propellers on drones in WWII.
These engines were amazing in their design,
Amazing workmanship. It was used in the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver; Douglas A-20 Havoc; Grumman TBF Avenger; Martin PBM Mariner; North American B-25 Mitchell
The Spirit of St. Louis!
Imagine flying 3,000 miles across the Atlantic in this thing!!
The good old North American F86
Everyone knows the DC-3
The Catalina PBY
Lots of memories here.
I remember laying the back yard on my back with my parents watching the Sputnik go over Los Angeles...It was amazing.
The Hallicrafter S-53 receiver (I had one) and listened to the beep beep of Sputnik.
Sputnik in all its glory.
Kennedy, the last good Democrat, said, "Let's go to the moon!"
Our first space ship was tiny. Gemni means "two"
Vanna White; East your heart out!
Paul gives the tour.
The Hycon pan camera was my baby on the Apollo program! It came form the SR-71 Blackbird.
Riding a bullet!
An amazing machine.
This kept the SR-71 on target within a few feet after four hour of flying.
God Bless America!
We returned "home" and visited with Lanette having a lite meal after our Mexican fiesta. Tomorrow we leave early as we are going to Salem and then down the coast on "1" to Cresent City. Its about seven hours driving time but we are not in a hurry.
