If you’ve ever driven on Oregon’s Highway 18 to the coast, you’ll usually notice three things when you first cruise into good ol’ McMinnville.

1. The Spruce Goose hanging out in front of a vineyard
2. A 747 strapped to the roof of a water park
3. A fighter jet perched atop a pedestal across the street from the cool stuff

It’s strange how normal they become when you drive by the trifecta every day. But, for the thousands that just do a fly-by of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum and the Wings & Waves Waterpark, the sight can be mesmerizing and make you focus entirely on one side of the highway. Which, makes total sense given the multiple 747’s, fighter jets, and NASA stuff that sits outside the campus.

Across the undivided four-lane highway lies a totally different kind of oddity that, up close, is much bigger than you’d think from the road. And plus, this attraction is free.

The F-15A Eagle, designated 76-00014, was built in 1977 in St. Louis, Missouri, and sits directly across from the Spruce Goose. Before retiring in McMinnville, this beast of war toured the world, stopping in Massachusetts, North Dakota, West Germany, and Ohio. In 1996, the Oregon National Guard turned the ‘old’ bird over to the museum, where it became one of the many aeronautics articles to call the larger museum campus home.

Now, this guardian of the skies, gutted, sits just off a highway in McMinnville. And in full view of the sun and the moon and the stars and the rain, it rests as a testament to how far the once-billion-dollar-empire of Evergreen International Aviation has fallen.

-Andrew Brunello

PS. The answer is, technically, Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.