The Road(s) to the Flying M Ranch

Jeffrey Butts

This is a story of a trip where the destination was never reached. It was a mild Saturday in August and I was looking to go for a little back road drive. I had half a notion to go to the new Evergreen Air Museum in McMinnville. It had been a couple of years (March of 2001 to be exact) since I had been there. Adam and I had gone to the "old" museum to walk through the over-crowded aisles of the buildings the museum occupied at the McMinnville Airport. Later that year they opened a new, more grandiose building, with the primary displays centered on the reassembled Spruce Goose. With Adam back in Illinois (getting married this very weekend, in fact) I tried without luck to find another pilot to go on this jaunt with me. Museums are best enjoyed, I think, with an expert along to explain the subtleties and tell you hair-raising yarns for color. Well, I figured, that's strike one. I'll just hop over Chehalem Mountain and have lunch at my friends Mike and Cheri Hart's restaurant in Yamhill.

Highway 219 is one of the better sports car roads in the Tualatin Valley. What's really cool is that it is right over the hill from me! Well paved, it climbs south, up from the community of Scholls and crosses the summit of Chehalem Mountain. The climb up from Scholls is mostly third and fourth gear corners, well suited for cars like the 914. From the top, the road follows a series of more serpentine curves down the hill and into Newberg but I turned off at North Valley road, just at the bottom of the hill. My plan was to cut over to Highway 240, the Newberg-Yamhill highway. Second snag of the day, a road detour. On these kinds of trips I always take along my dog-eared Oregon road atlas just in case. I knew a couple of ways to get to Yamhill but my map showed me a third (Laughlin Road). Off to a new discovery and, as it turns out, a good test of my suspension. When I pulled my sore butt into Yamhill I discovered that Mike and Cheri were on vacation and the restaurant was closed. Strike two.

Map in hand, I walked a block down the street and had an excellent sandwich at the Yamhill Cafe. What to do, what to do? In the coast range there is a rustic lodge called The Flying M Ranch. Boasting a landing strip, a restaurant, a meeting hall, and overnight accommodations, I thought it would make a good story and an acceptable THIRD plan for the day. Munching my roast beef sandwich, I checked the map and saw a couple of ways to the top. With a full stomach, an empty bladder, and the numbness gone from my seat, I saddled up and headed up into the foothills. God, I love the Willamette Valley and all its' little nooks and crannies. The weather was beautiful, not too hot (as it had been the previous few weeks) and the countryside was equally spectacular. Just west of town the road crosses Salt Creek. Going over the bridge I caught sight of a Norman Rockwell-style swimming hole, complete with a rope swing. I swear, had I made this trip a couple of weeks ago, when the temps were over 100, I would have been down there in a heartbeat.

I continued up Oak Ridge road to the Fairdale cut-off. There were nice sites to see along the way, old barns, cast-off and rusting trucks, hundred year-old farmhouses and all the vistas that you would expect for this part of the country. Alas, Fairdale road turned to gravel so I turned around and headed for the other road to the Flying M. Is Jeffrey afraid of a little dirt and gravel? No, not really. You may recall that I took the 911 on a trip up a gravel road to Hayward (Oregon) earlier this year. However, what with having done the Q-tip and toothbrush job on the 914 just a few months ago, I was reluctant to leave the pavement. Yeah, I know, what a weenie. Well, maybe it would be better on the other route. So, back down the hill towards Yamhill and then north a mile or so to Pike road to try again.

Pike Road heads northwest out of town and is fairly heavily traveled. There are a couple of businesses in this part of the farm country, including a huge nursery. About a mile and a half out of town I spied a big open shed with, of all things, two old fire engines stored with the farm equipment. Never one to pass something like this by, I stopped the car and snapped a couple of photos of those old rigs. The white one is a dead ringer for the Engine that I served most of my time on (except for the color), a '64 Ford T-850 dual axle. The motor is a 544 cu in V8 and it sucks gas like an F-4 Phantom. The older, red rig was a Dodge with a single axle. I wonder if...nah, never mind. One is enough for me.

On up Pike I went until I was a good five or six miles from town and then, I suppose predictably, the road petered out and went to gravel. Strike three. I was not going to the Flying M today. I turned back around and headed back to town. North on Highway 47 through Gaston and then over Blooming-Fern Hill Road (don'tcha just love the names of the roads?) to Golf Course Road and then back down the Hillsboro Highway to Farmington and home. I never got to the museum. I never had lunch at Mike's. I never got to the Flying M. All in all though it was a great day for a ride and, given the opportunity to drive in the Willamette Valley, it's never a complete shut out. No hits during today's at bat but, then again, no errors either.