Oregon Trail - Day 3

Day 3 started with a trip to the Tillamook Air Museum for me and Jamie... what a treat! The bulk of the collection are flying aircraft, and include some very rare warbirds indeed. The museum is housed in a WWII-era blimp hangar, and you truly have to stand in the middle of it to appreciate it!

One of the highlights of the collection is their very rare P-38 Lightning "Tangerine". This plane actually crashed several years ago, killing the pilot, well-known aviation expert and author Jeffrey Ethell. It has been completely rebuilt and is once again flying - it was really nice of them to let me and Jamie take it out for a spin... ok, Susan, I'm joking!!! The entire collection is parked in the hangar, no ropes around any of them, and you can walk right up and smell the oil and metal and look right in many of the cockpits... wonderful!

While Jamie and I spent a wonderful couple of hours at the Air Museum, K and C spent a couple of hours at their own museum...

We left Tillamook just after noon and enjoyed a leisurely drive down the coast to Newport, OR. Unfortunately, the climbing temperatures inland were dragging the cold air in off the ocean, and we drove in and out of ocean mist most of the way. Once in Newport, we went to the Oregon Aquarium, which was a lovely little treat. Above is the "Passages of the Deep" exhibit, where you walk underneath several thousand gallons of water and hundreds of fish, including sharks in one of the tanks... cool!

We finished off the day with a walk and play on the sands of Yaquina Bay. This photo is taken from the Yaquina Bay lighthouse (don't confuse it with the Yaquina Head lighthouse!). To the left are the two massive (2-mile long) breakwaters protecting the entrance to Yaquina Bay. We ended Day 3 with a lovely meal at the Chalet Restaurant (Home of Lincoln County's Best Pancakes!), and it lived up to it's reputation.