The first family flight after the plane has returned from annual is complete. It is finally starting to feel like spring in Seattle and today was the perfect day to throw a dart at the sectional and go. We picked McMinnville, OR. Mama pilot and the Little dude have never been, but Papa pilot visited many years ago. We did the basic: Weather, NOTAMS, crew car check and headed to the airport. The first stop was the fuel farm for some $5.03/gal 100LL. Normally Auburn has the best price but McMinnville beat them by $.05 per gallon. We just filled the tanks at home.
The winds were out of the southwest so we departed runway 1-6 for a quick 0:53 flight. We requested flight following after departure and Seattle Approach even gave us the coveted Class Bravo climb. Some puffy clouds to skirt around and before long we were landing runway 2-2 at KMMV.
The parking wasn’t very obvious at first but then we saw the transient sign and parked. We hadn’t decided whether we wanted to just do lunch or go to the museum across the street. The actual FBO (Konect Aviation) is slightly behind another building. We wondered into the FBO and learned that the Evergreen Air museum offered a shuttle from the FBO to the Museum. They also have a small café, Belle Cafe’ that was open. They do have another café, but it wasn’t open. We decided to try the Museum! The shuttle was quick and brought us to the museum promptly.
Pro tip: I did note the FBO had a GRACO carseat and inquired; apparently someone left it and never used it, so on top of 2 crew cars (a SUV and cop car) they also have a carseat and the museum across the street offers a shuttle. Never have we had so many options for a quick visit. They also had enterprise rental cars, but I didn’t ask about that process.
The Museum was so exciting for The Little Dude. We brought along a Blackbird and a Blue angel toy jets; then learned that the museum also had these on display. There are 4 large buildings at the museum: An indoor waterpark with a 747 on the roof that houses 4 slides, a hangar with the worlds only Spruce Goose, a theater and a Hangar which housed the Blackbird and space exhibits. Also, was a very large play ground with lots to keep kids busy. I wish we had planned more time to visit all there was to do!
The Space hangar and the blackbird were our first stops, there were many replicas and actual aircraft/spacecraft. As soon as you walk in there is a small airplane carousel (kids 24-48″ can ride included in the admission price.) Of Course we picked the Red airplane and the Volunteer showed him how to move the plane up and down as he was going round and round. The Little Dude also loved the Mercury rocket for kids with all the buttons and the cockpit of the F-100 with all the buttons and levers which all moved!
We didn’t have time for much more after exploring the space hangar, we skipped the theater and playground to have time to see the Spruce Goose. There is a small area of the Spruce Goose that can be accessed by a few stairs. The Docent in the Spruce Goose was very informative. He shared it was 95% wood and that it only flew one time. We then grabbed a quick bite from the Café.
The Belle Café that was open is a small open dining area as soon as you walk into the aviation hangar. The menu was simple; salads, soup, hog dogs and pre-made sandwiches and such, not many offerings for a pregnant mama pilot, but it was fine. A quick bite and we were back on the shuttle with no wait and over to the airport. We walked right onto the field and did our preflight. The Little Dude is such a great helper, he untied the tie downs all by himself! We departed runway 2-2, to return home. The puffy spring/summer time clouds had built up and we found a nice hole to climb up though VFR. Although, there were 6 airplanes within 1000 feet of our altitude in our area. We love our ADSB in for finding all of these because we could only see 2! After we were on top of the clouds it was mostly smooth ride back with a 20 knot cross wind. Landing back home on 1-6 and we tucked the Bonanza in until next time.
