Tillamook cheese factory

Thursday, July 15, 2010

When in Tillamook you feel like you have to visit the cheese factory. On my first visit many years ago, hardly anyone was there. Now it's a major attraction. Mobs of people herd through the viewing rooms and gift shops, and they line up to try cheese samples and to buy ice-cream.

I would find it hard to wake up every day and think that I had to work in the cheese factory. Workers must get used to having an audience.

I don't know what goes on here.

My arrow points to the word 'color.' I'm guessing this must be where they put the colour dye in for orange cheese.

Quality control? At the far end sat this girl by herself. Every now and then she'd nab a brick of cheese from the belt and set it aside.

I must have been getting tired of taking photos because I took none of the crowds of people, which would have been difficult anyway. Glenn got an ice-cream cone before we left. It seemed like at least 90% of the visitors were eating ice-cream.

Tillamook Air Museum - airplanes

Thursday July 15, 2010

A card (above) in the gift shop shows the purpose of the building.

This museum had some unusual (and sometimes unattractive) airplanes. For instance, the Grumman Duck is very rare... but it would not win a prize in my aircraft beauty contest.

Ok, this one is just plain weird. What a profile. Designed by Guissepe Bellanca, the Bellanca Aircruiser with its protruding nose and W-shaped struts looks like an art project gone wrong to me.

It would appear that Mr. Bellanca wasn't concerned with aesthetics but I suppose this plane did have its purpose.

Catalina.

Now, let's have a look at some more regular looking designs. According to the museum's brochure, many of the planes in this canopied area are privately owned and flyable.

The Hispano Buchon also known as the Messerschmitt Me -109.

Ahhh, a Stearman.

A sign says this early Ford Tri-Motor aircraft seat was taken from the mountain crash site in Utah in the early 1930's.

Mustang.

Where does one get all the helium needed for a blimp I wondered. Perhaps we would have found out if we hadn't missed the show in the theatre about this museum and its history. In the Helium Room is a large GE motor "which powered two pneumatic compressors used to remove impure helium from the blimps and pump it into the 60' spherical tank outside the hangar."

Outside was another classic antique, the Stinson Reliant.

Other planes include a Nakajima Oscar, Fairchild 24 and a Cessna 180 with a graphic saying it was one of two planes that were the first light aircraft on the North Pole.

Tillamook Air Museum - Hangar B

Thursday July 15, 2010

Our first destination on this day was the Tillamook Air Museum. I remember seeing this building many years ago but had never been inside.

In 1942 the US Navy began building 17 of these wooden structures to house blimps. Tillamook had two: Hangar B and Hangar A. Hangar A was completed in less than a month; unfortunately it burned down in 1992.

No fumbling around trying to find this museum. It would be hard to miss.

Having come from the pristine, theme-park-like Evergreen Aviation Museum I found this one to be refreshingly rustic. I will remember this museum for some odd-looking aircraft. The Mini-Guppy out front is one. To me it looks like it's missing eyes.

The lighting inside makes photography a challenge.

This building is over 15 stories high.

The doors are 120 feet high. Six sections, 30 tons each roll on railroad tracks.