Moving day again today, so I was up by and going by 8:00 a.m.  this morning.  The best part about the morning was that it had actually stopped raining finally, and there was real sunshine peeking out from around the edges of the big fluffy clouds drifting by. Fearing that it wouldn’t last for long I made a quick breakfast, finished putting stuff away inside the trailer and went out to back the truck up and hook the trailer up. I have to admit that it has become much easier over the years to hook up and get ready to go on my own. It usually takes anywhere from 2 to 10 tries for me to get the hitch ball lined up and directly under the trailer cup, with it working better sometimes than others. This morning it only took 5 quick looks to get it in line and the tongue lowered down onto the ball. The rest is easy after that, plug in the trailers electrical cable, attach the safety chains and then install the load leveler bars and winch them up into position. The last thing to do is install the truck end of the anti sway bar to the hitch, and tighten up the friction screw on it. One final check to make sure everything is put away that needs to be, and then a quick trip over to the dump site to empty the tanks before getting  back on the road. Today I was actually packed up and driving south before 10:00, my usual take off time.

   I was in no real hurry today as it was only around 125 miles to my next stop down by Newport Oregon. With that in mind I went ahead and had a slightly early lunch in the town of Tillamook as I drove through. An hour or so there reading my book and then a short hop from there over to the ‘Blimp Hangar Museum’ on the south side of town. Had meant to visit this several days ago while I was down visiting the cheese factory, but time got away from me on that day so I just saved it for today instead.

    The Blimp Museum is actually located in one of what had been two blimp hangars built and used during WWII to house 6-9 medium sized blimps. These were used to patrol this part of the coast for Japanese and German uboats and other possible invasion forces because they could stay aloft for up to 3 days at a time. The blimps they were using were only medium sized, non-rigid types a couple of hundred feet long apiece. As such, the hangers for these giant air bags had to be huge. Constructed of concrete foundations with wood framed trusses for the roof, they were, and still have, the largest and longest clear span wood framed trusses in the country. There were originally two built there in Tillamook, but one of them burned down in 1996, so now there is only one here, although there are several others scatted along both coasts in the U.S., including a couple in Florida, Washington, California and a couple other places that I don’t recall.

    It is hard to understand how big these places are until you actually walk in the front doors that stretch more than 150 feet over your head. Inside there was enough room to house 6-9 medium sized blimps. To put it into proper perspective; you could play 7 simultaneous professional football games in one of these at one time and still have room left over for the cheer leaders and mascots on the sidelines. What finally got me to except how large they are, was one plaque that explained how there were several families of barn owls that lived and nested in the upper truss chords year round. Biology teachers from surrounding schools often come in to pick the ‘owl pellets’ up off the floor so their classes can dissect them and see what the owls have been eating.

   As far as the actual museum; there were a dozen or so airplanes displayed inside, as well as misc. other stuff associated with the military during WWII. There were several displays with artifacts from the actual air station that was based there during the war. It seems like it was a pretty well established place, one of those bases that were important to the war effort, but nobody ever heard about unless they lived in the area. I have some photos from the day so I’ll see if any of them turn out and then see about posting a few later on.

   Continuing south from there it was a pleasant drive the rest of the way down to the campground. The only exciting thing was the two times I had to stomp on the brakes because the car in front of me all of a sudden decided to stop and turn left. I’m glad I try to leave a good long space between me and the person ahead just for such problems. I am also thankful that my brother in law, Mark, found and fixed the frayed electrical brake wire to my trailer brakes when I stopped by their place back in June.    

   My latest camping spot is located just north of Newport Oregon at Beverly Beach State Park. I pulled in around 5:00 and found that there were plenty of empty spaces to camp in, I just had to drive around until I found one that suited me and the trailer. It is a beautiful little campground, just a couple hundred feet from the ocean, and nestled back into a huge grove of spruce and firs. It does make it rather dark at times, but it feels a little bit primeval as if dinosaurs could show up at any moment.

   One bad thing about the location though is that it is down in a small bowl between a couple of mountains, so there is no real phone reception, and what WiFi I do have from my little portable device, is pretty iffy. I did manage to call up email and face book a while back, but everything was super slow to load, so it is doubtful that there is enough oomph to post anything from it. Will most likely have to wait until tomorrow when I can go into town and find somebody else’s WiFi to log onto.

   For now though it is a nice place to be. I’m signed up for another full week here so I’ll have plenty of time to go and explore. For those of you that don’t know, I was stationed in Depoe Bay, just north of here, when I was in the Coast Guard back in the late 70’s, so this whole area is still rather special to me. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of my old haunts and maybe even finding a new one or two. There is also an old friend that I heard was here and that I would like to reconnect with if he is. Otherwise; there always seems to be plenty of things to do.

 

Looks like it may work.... so here it goes.

 

brk*