Movable Museum: Convoy of military vehicles to stop in Baker City

Aug. 19—Dan McCluskey is heading for Baker City in his three-quarter ton Vietnam-era M37 cargo truck.

But his rig — along with the 32 other military vehicles he's traveling with — won't be delivering any cargo.

Instead, McCluskey describes the convoy as a moving museum.

"Our goal is to show everybody how the military used their vehicles," McCluskey said. "They see military vehicles in museums on static display, but we're out there to show them how they used them in motion."

"We're putting hundreds of miles on them, day in, day out. This is how they moved them in convoy order."

McCluskey, a member of the Military Vehicle Preservation Association (MVPA), is the convoy commander for the 2022 MVPA Northwest Parks Motor Convoy, which is scheduled to arrive in Baker City on Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 24, and spend the night at the Baker County Fairgrounds north of Campbell Street between Grove and East streets.

McCluskey said the convoy is "fully on track for all of the scheduled stops."

After spending the night of Aug. 23 at the Grant County Fairgrounds in John Day, the convoy will stop in Sumpter for lunch on Aug. 24 and arrive in Baker City via Highway 7. He guessed the line of vehicles would roll north on Main Street through downtown Baker City at around 3 o'clock to 4 o'clock that afternoon.

Then, the convoy will arrange in close order at the fairgrounds.

"We encourage the public to come out and visit," McCluskey said.

"We'll be camping right there on the fairgrounds, so we're gonna have about 33 military vehicles there for them to walk around, talk to our people, look at the vehicles."

All the vehicles are privately owned by the people participating in the convoy, who are all MVPA members.

Founded in 1976, MVPA is a nonprofit with more than 100 affiliates worldwide "dedicated to providing an international organization for military vehicle enthusiasts, historians, preservationists and collectors interested in the acquisition, restoration, preservation, safe operation and public education of historic military transport," according to its mission.

McCluskey estimated that about 30%, and maybe more, of the participants in this year's convoy are military veterans.

When the convoy reaches Baker City it will be on day 11 of a 15-day, 1,600-mile historical loop taking the convoy through Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Parts of the loop overlap with a longer, 6,350-mile highway the National Parks Service established in 1924 — the National Park-to-Park Highway — that encompasses all the

national parks in the 11 western states.

The convoy's schedule includes visits to the Lewis and Clark Trail, Mount Rainier National Park, Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood, Washington's Pacific Coast, Oregon Trail sites, Hells Canyon and other significant military sites after leaving Kamiah, Idaho, the start point, on Aug. 14.

Occasionally, McClusky said, members from MVPA affiliations along the route join in for segments of the journey. MVPA has affiliate clubs in Woodland, Washington, and in Wilsonville.

McClusky said the vehicles — from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and current eras — can't travel faster than 35 miles per hour.

"That's our max speed," he said. "A lot of times it's a lot less because we are going up over hills. These old military vehicles are definitely not doing

60 miles per hour going over the grades."

Three units make up the convoy during travel: the "heavies," 1.5- through 5-ton vehicles, lead the charge,

followed by 3/4 -ton Dodge cargo trucks, followed by the jeep unit.

McCluskey said they travel anywhere from 85 to 170 miles per day.

This 1,600-mile trip isn't the longest McClusky and the MVPA have completed. They traveled the Lincoln military highway, which spans from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, in 2009, and completed the Bankhead Route from D.C. to Seattle in 2015. They also drove from Seattle to Plymouth Rock last year.

McCluskey said people usually show their support when they see the convoy.

"Along the way, we'll have people out at the end of their driveways, waving flags, waiting for the convoy to go by," he said.

The convoy will leave the Baker County Fairgrounds at 7 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 25 and stop in Oxbow, at the Oregon/Idaho border, for lunch. It will then head north for an afternoon display in Joseph and spend the night at the Eagle Cap Shooters Association in Enterprise.