Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum Hood River (WAAM) August 28, 2020: Part 1

What is the WAAM Museum?

One of the premier attractions in Hood River, the WAAM is an acronym and short for Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum (WAAM) and showcases antique planes, cars, and vintage machinery from several time periods. This is an interesting museum and should definitely be on your list of things to do in Hood River. This is a unique place and located en route to the Hood River Fruit Loop. You can take a quick peek on your way to the great sites and tourist attractions on the Fruit Loop. This short article will cover what the WAAM is along with what you can expect to find before you even go inside.

On coming to Hood River, you will notice that there are several ways of getting there, but be on the lookout for this sign:

Looking around you will notice as well the glider on the other side of the driveway going to the WAAM museum.

Speaking of gliders, these are still in use and I believe they even have big events from time to time here in Hood River if I am not mistaken. Gliders use no power and do exactly what the name says, they basically just glide after being towed in the air. For more information and as I am sure other sites can give you much more information on this than I currently can visit the local glider website:

https://www.hoodriversoaring.org/

Moving further into the driveway you will see all sort of intersting things such as this rusty ratrod.

I really love how this rusty ratrod has been put to good use, it looks interesting and is very rustic looking and you do see this even before you pull into the parking lot.

Looking you will notice other things such as old vintage cars, an outdoor picnic table area for groups of people, plus a kids play plane where they can pretend they may be flying an actual airplane.

Going further to the entrance of the WAAM you will notice something else that is quite interesting. The WAAM has an interesting tower that used to be used by the US Airmail service as sort of a GPS ground positioning tower. At least that is the gist of what it says on the front billboard that it has posted there. I found this to be quite interesting, you don’t see many vintage radio or locational towers around anymore.

Now, in front of the WAAM museum you will see more interesting items. Lots of vintage and antique machinery used “back in the day” as I say…..like vintage miner and agricultural equipment. It should come as no surprise that they have these items here as this area was and is still quite big into agriculture and from some stories I hear little mining here in the past, but not exactly 100% sure on that, so please don’t take my word on it.

Have a look at some of the vintage machinery in front of the WAAM:

Definitely a great thing to do in Hood River!

I give this museum two thumbs up, and I can’t say enough great things about how if you are going to spend a day here in Hood River, you need to come check this place out. As noted earlier, I haven’t even gone inside yet for this article and even if you spend a few minutes checking out the outside, perhaps you just want to get on the fruit loop or other destination such as Mt Hood. You can spend a few minutes with your kids or if you want to admire the outside alone that is enough to keep things interesting for a few minutes while you go on about your day. The views from here especially in the morning are amazing!!

So what do you think? The above pictures show that you will see on a beautiful morning some great scenery if you stop in here, even if its to check out the outside.

I will leave with a gallery of more photos I took for this below, but please comment below on what your experience was on here! Thanks for reading!!

Also be sure to check out their social media which I will post here as well!

Social Media for WAAM in Hood River

Website: https://www.waaamuseum.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WAAAMuseum