2025.09.18
Burns, Oregon to McMinnville, Oregon
Spirits are high today as it's the last significant day of riding for the event, with tomorrow being a short day's ride to the Oregon coast.
Dry River Canyon
Frank Westfall on his 1914 Henderson at a gas stop after he shooed away a stranger who wanted to livestream with him. Frank's got places to be!
Three Sisters mountains in the distance
Mt Washington
This stretch of Oregon has been really beautiful riding, nice roads that pass through a forest of giant Douglas Firs.
I caught Tim Burns at a gas stop and he mentioned that this area is his backyard and there's volcanic fields not far off this route that he recommends checking out sometime. Toward the end of the day's ride I passed by some very large vineyards.
Kelsey had let me know there'd be a Ferry on the route today, and this morning's mass text confirmed it and informed riders to have a few dollars on them. Though I'm not following the same route as the riders, I often end up on it, and I made it a point to look up the ferry they'd be taking and made my way to the Wheatland Ferry. The Wheatland Ferry is a cable ferry across the Willamette River and costs $2 for motorcycles. It was a steep grade down to the ferry and wet metal ramps, but the ferry ride itself was smooth. Getting off the ferry I let the vehicle in front of my get a ways up and then I just climbed off the ferry and up the incline with some speed.
The finish line for today's event is at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. The museum was easy to find as there's a Boeing 747 visible from the highway.
At the museum I helped set up the finish line flags and then I looked up aircraft flagging signals so I could use them to direct the antique bikes in. Frank was the first one in on his Henderson. I bought another Motorcycle TransAm shirt from Bryce at the merch table as it's been a while since I did laundry at a hotel and I'm out of clean shirts to wear. In the museum I picked up a fridge magnet and a postcard. Bryce has been picking up postcards along the trip to journal on so she lets me know when she finds good ones.
Replica of a Hiller Model 1031 Flying Platform. Not quite as cool as the Rotar and XPAK 400 that Ed Roth and George Barris came up with a decade later.
My Goose finally took me to see the Spruce Goose!
Hughes H-4 Hercules. Just an incredible aircraft to behold. Flown once, ran when parked! The museum also has a collection of Hughes Airlines and TWA items such as stewardess uniforms and tableware.
We were able to tour the plane, including the cargo hold. Here's the cockpit:
The parc fermé was located in the museum.
As I mentioned in an earlier post from Dale's Wheels Through Time, I love engine cutaways!
Though it was a bit off course for the route, this museum was a really great stop for the event as nearly everyone had mechanical interest in what was displayed, and quite a few riders and crew have a background in aerospace and aviation other than myself.
This 1944 Ford GPV (Jeep) has one of my favorite features on any vehicle, the headlight can be flipped up and adjusted as a spotlight or work lamp.
Spirit of St Louis replica
Earlier in the trip Davin "motogluten" Wirtanen of Biltwell messaged me saying he'd catch us at the museum and it was nice to finally meet him.
Connor and Sean doing the clean up dance - sliding pig mats on the floor to clean up oil that leaked from the motorcycles.
In the evening at the hotel parking lot Erik Bahl and Joe were working on Danger Dan's 1921 Harley magneto. He's been having ignition issues on and off the whole event and Erik is just the person to sort them out. He gave us all a great little course on magnetos. One of the issues was that resistor spark plug wires were being used, which don't play well with the mag. The next potential issue was that the mag was dusty inside from wear. Erik showed us how if you turn the mag by hand, you should feel some resistance, and that hand turning should be enough to fire the spark plugs. He explained that with the wasted spark ignition on these Harleys the polarity doesn't matter because the spark jumps from ground strap to center electrode on one plug and center electrode to ground strap on the other plug.
