Cheese Nerds vs. Fighter Jet Nerds
Just wrapped up a visit from the in-laws. My father-in-law is a big time World War II buff so we went and visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum outside of McMinnville. The museum is home to that magnificent creation of Howard Hughes – the Spruce Goose. All I can really say about it is that it’s big. Especially when you see it parked alongside other seemingly massive aircrafts that are absolutely dwarfed by The Goose. The museum is also home to lots of WW II vets that walk around in green vests adorned with a thousand patches. If you stop too long to gaze at any one particular aircraft, a vet will swoop in and immediately start rattling off a laundry list of statistics regarding the craft you are looking at. Allow them to prattle on, and they start going into the minutiae of flight plans and the controversy surrounding which American P-38 actually shot down Admiral Yamamoto’s plane.

There was a time when all these airplanes would have been really interesting (like when I was 12). Now, I would have to say my favorite part of the museum was a display tucked way in the back that housed a collection of mod flight attendant uniforms.

On our way back from the jet museum we stopped at the Erath Vineyard and got down to some wine tasting. The wine was very good, especially the Prince Hill which tasted like liquid dessert. But the wine played second fiddle to the cheese tasting! The aged Fontina put out by the Willamette Valley Cheese Company is worth your entire tax return. I found it much easier to digest the detailed cheese nerd talk then I did the airplane nerd talk. Maybe those World War II vets need to walk around with a trays of cheese!