First FULL day in Oregon

Oregon, Full Day 1.
I “woke up” this morning around 6am. I put woke up in quotes because I never really fell asleep for very long. The hotel itself was fine, but, what you can’t tell ahead of time, is that it is right next door to a 24-hr Subway restaurant with a drive thru, the speaker for which was only 50 feet from my room’s window. Groovy.

So, I woke up kinda blah, and it was still raining. It would continue to be in the 50s and rainy all day. Not great weather to be wandering around outside in, but great indoor photography weather. I hauled my non-conformist non-creed-specific carcass out of bed and shuffled my way through a shower and the normal morning routine, then sat around editing photos and reading till about 7:45, when I headed out for Starbucks. (Happy, Mike? ;) )

With caffeine in hand, I proceeded to drive the three miles over to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, the home of the legendary Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat.

I parked the little Aveo at the Evergreen museum by 8:15, and, coffee and camera in hand, proceeded to photograph all the birds on display OUTSIDE the museum. That took me the 45 minutes until the museum opened for business at nine, and, while I was behind the museum shooting the P-80, MiG-15UTI and others in the back lot, I noticed some muzzles on the hill above me. I squelched my way up the muddy hill and found some old armor atop the hill, which, of course, I shot. Maybe some of you can tell me what is what from the photos over at Picasa, and the muddy one below. ;)

So, once the museum opened, I got my admission and told the young lady at the desk that Kasey in PR had set me up for a tour of the massive Flying Boat. Somewhat surprised that she knew who I was, she set me up to tour the Hercules at 11, which gave me two hours to roam around the museum.

It wasn’t enough time for me to shoot half the aircraft in the main building, but part of that was because I would stop and talk to the extremely friendly and knowledgeable docents who came up to me every once in a while.

It seemed, almost immediately, to become 11. I had worked my way around the exhibits under the Hercules’ right wing, and, at one point from beside the replica of the Wright Flyer, I texted myself this message in shorthand. (I text to my email when I want to remember notes on something).

I am, right now, standing in the shadow of history. When you know the numbers, she sounds big. 218ft in length, 319ft, 11inch wingspan. Numbers don’t tell you the story. Nothing you’ve seen compares. She is said to have been able to accommodate 700 troops. I can tell you without having to measure that the Statue of Liberty, WITH torch, could lay down inside her comfortably. (She’s 151 feet tall. Weight will be withheld to protect Liberty’s modesty, but it is barely within capability of lift for this girl here). She’s THAT massive. Of course, as you’ve seen from the photo above, I’m talking about the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat. She only flew once, for about a mile. Let’s put that into perspective. Her wingspan is 320 feet. Over 100 yards. That’s 1/16th of a mile. So she flew just over 16 times her wingspan. Back in 1903, the Wright Flyer had a wingspan of 40 ft 4 in, and its longest flight on Dec 17th, 1903 was 852ft, or, about 21 times its own wingspan. So, in perspective, the only flight of the Hughes Hercules seems insignificant. Until you meet her face to, well, really low part of the forward hull, in my 6’3” case. This is not an airplane. This is a building with wings. It makes the C-5 Galaxy and Boeing 747 look svelte. (There’s a 747 here outside. And a 1903 Flyer replica. I’ll get there in a minute, as all I have to do is turn around. But the grand lady has my attention at the moment.)

Do you remember when I told you yesterday to keep scale in mind? Yeah, here's why:

So, 11 o’clock. I entered the Hercules and met up with Gene, who was to be my personal tour guide through the massive bird. I’ve read quite a lot about Hughes and the H-4, so he and I were able to keep quite the conversation going as he pointed out points of the aircraft I had only ever read about.

After touring the hull, we ascended the spiral staircase to the massive flight deck. I even have a picture of me sitting in the Pilot’s seat, and, yes, Jim, I took plenty of cockpit photos for you. My tour inside the H-4 probably took a good 45 minutes.

Then, for the rest of the day up until about 4, I photographed the rest of the Aviation side of the museum, AND the Space side.

Then it was time to head down and meet up with Nellie, AND get the Aveo’s tire replaced. I went in to the Enterprise at Cor where Nellie lives, but they didn’t have a vehicle to trade me, so sent me over to Firestone to get the wheel replaced, on their dime, of course, which I did.

After that, I drove over to Nellie’s and we had dinner and caught up for a while until calling it a night. However, tired as I am, since I may have only gotten 3 hrs of sleep last night, I wanted to be sure and hit a post before bed. Tomorrow I plan to work on getting some of the photos up on Picasa, and a few to illustrate this blog as well.

photos on Picasa are UP!!

Thus endeth day 1. Tomorrow is probably going to be a rest day, but we’ll see ;)
Love to all!