Cottage Grove, Oregon

I only go to Cottage Grove for three things.
One:   The Stearman Fly-in is held here in early August.
Two:   Territorial Seeds is right there on the Cottage Grove airfield.
Three: I get to fly here.

There supposedly is a fabric store on Main ( Pandora's Box) but I haven't managed it yet.

Our first terribly HOT day in Oregon at nearly 100'f (40'c) was, well, hot.
We flew down after I got off work and stayed around to talk Stearman with new & old friends.

I traipsed over to Territorial where you can touch everything plantwise that is in their awesome catalog.
I bought some seeds for fall planting (as soon as our 'heat wave' breaks) and some Wallo' waters for next spring's tomato plants.

 Flying south to Cottage Grove. Farmers have mostly bailed their hay by this time and there are intricate designs in the fields. Hard to photograph today because of the noon hour and the hot haze.
Purple lavender field blooming. Not sure what orange field is -at center. Maybe clover.

 Some of the stubble fields are burned (controlled). This one struck my camera eye.

 

There was a small breeze as we sat under the wings of our Stearmans and chatted idly about anything you had the energy to discuss while drinking bottle after bottle of water.
Dinner at 6pm was catered and good and we flew home shortly afterwards.

That flight home was even more hot. Our poor wooden prop could not beat hard enough to lift us higher without the oil pressure skyrocketing. We battled it out at 2400', hot and bothered.


I took a couple of videos and some photos which I will drag to the bottom of this post - not to bore you or anything with too many fond photos of cool planes.


After our epic trip to Sweden & Finland, I have about a thousand photos to deal with. I've pretty much decided what I am doing with them but 'someone' (me) has to actually do the organizing.
One book will be photos of the trip. The second might be of the cool planes. The third -- of discovered family with a few genealogy charts scanned in.

I also need to figure out which ones to print out to send to said family in Mariehamn. I did a fantastic job of bringing thank you gifts so I don't feel the need to send out more. One tiny thing checked off my list.
I came back to a yard gone wild and a nice full-load work schedule which has already paid off the visa (good) but has left little time for updating the blog, sewing, or just rambling.
My husband's jet-lag cold turned into Pneumonia making me feel quite behind in my summer busyness.
I have thought of some blog post ideas and will get to them as soon as I can.

I refuse to show zucchini on my blog but rest assured we have lots and lots of garden produce; tomatoes, potatoes, blueberries, raspberries, greens, basil, and zucchini.
Not gonna show all the weeds either. They are being dealt with, slowly.

Waco recently restored. Owner-pilot is only a few hours into his 20 hours dual instruction.

Oregon Historical Aviation hangar.

To see more photos from a previous flyin, go here.
As you scroll through, look for our plane.
Need a hint?

2011 Cottage Grove, Oregon Stearman Fly-In

We had originally planned on staying the entire weekend in Cottage Grove but our dear friend, Skeets Mehrer, died the previous week flying his Comanche. Skeets has restored over ten Stearman biplanes and he will be sorely missed not only by us but the entire northwest flying community.
We flew down Saturday in about 1hr5min after fueling at Lenhardt's. We enjoyed a lovely tailwind at about 1800'. Low hanging clouds would burn off eventually -giving me a bright sunburn.  I believe there were about 17 Stearman's in attendance but since we only came down for the one day I probably missed some.

The movies are  of a couple of Stearman's taxiing out for the Saturday 'activity' of flying over for lunch at Lakeside - near the Oregon Coast.

It seemed like we arrived only to find everyone departing. The planes came back in about 3 hours. Meanwhile we chatted up everyone else and I helped several kids explore the Stearman. One little girl even identified the elevator on our plane, I was so proud of her.

I took quite a few still shots  and two movies. I'm gonna give you the videos first and if you still haven't had enough Stearmans, you can scroll through all the still shots.

One note on both videos: The propellers are spinning really fast - but it appears they are only making two revolutions per second. Kinda cool.

While this is where we stand when we fuel the plane (center section), this pilot is adjusting his cameras!

Addison Pemberton's Speedmail

A purple biplane. My daughter would love this.

Yellow Stearman in front of us came from Santa Rosa, California.

A New Antique Airplane Show

We almost did not make it to the Cottage Grove Stearman Fly-in. One of our big Stearman buddies crashed and died this week and it has left some of us quite adrift. My husband and I decided to fly down for one day (Instead of the entire weekend) as a tribute to Skeets - our friend.

While enjoying the other classic/antique planes that flew in, I heard this show mentioned by not one, but three people. I had never heard of it and it bears 'making a goal' to attend. The show is in Blakesburg, Iowa and has the added delight of being the week before the National Stearman Fly In that is held in Galesburg, Illinois. Easy enough to enjoy both shows.

Too much sun and too much talking - I leave you
with this video of the Blakesburg Antique Airplane Fly-in.
Pretty planes from 2010.