Seattle–part 2

After a reasonably good night sleep, we were ready to tackle anything, well almost. The day started well. We woke up. Had a good breakfast and went to collect the hire car. It was about a 15 minute walk and took about about half an hour to do the paperwork, have stuff explained to us and for the hire company to get the car. We allowed 1 1/2 hours to pick up the car and drive the half hour to the Boeing factory for our 10:30 tour, so there went one third of the time. We managed to get on to the freeway, which took us very close to the factory, and almost immediately got caught in traffic holdups right through Seattle, lanes closed and reduced speed limits so that delayed us more. Appearing to turn off the freeway and then join it again, the clever driver decided that “Here maps” on the ‘phone was wrong. The suburbs around this area were interesting and the loop road took us back to a point we had seen before. Putting trust in Here maps, we did as we were told, ended up back where we were when we decided that we knew better, got back onto the road that we should have been on and had a straight forward run to the factory. We did realise many miles back that we were not going to get there in time for our scheduled tour, so by the time we did get lost, we were a lot calmer than we might have been. The ticketing conditions specifically states that the tickets are forfeited for failure to show. We got to the factory at about 10:45 and were a little philosophical about the outcome. We wondered if the ticket selling person had heard a better sob story. Either the sob story worked or the lady was very nice, or both. She didn’t hesitate about putting us on the 11:30 tour, maybe to get us out of the way. As bags, cameras, ‘phones etc are not allowed to be taken on the tour, Boeing provide lockers, with combination locks. Easy if you get it right. We locked ours, scrambled the code and then remembered that we had a ‘phone with us. The combination didn’t unlock the door. Must have the numbers not quite lined up when we (not Gill) set the code. Back to the very helpful ticket seller who opened the door for us. We checked that we could open it before she left. Time for a very needed coffee. Another good one, could have been a little stronger but we were happy with it.

On to the 1 1/2 hour tour. The assembly building is the biggest (floor area) in the world. 4 Jumbos were nose to tail in one small area with various parts spread around. A nose section here, a fuselage section there, wings near by etc. We saw 787s, the Dreamliner (we flew in a dreamliner from Melb to LA), spread out on the factory floor in various stages of assembly, it was just fantastic. There are about 35,000 employees on site. Here is the website: http://www.futureofflight.org/ and here on this page there is a video showing how to put a Dreamliner together quickly:

http://www.futureofflight.org/boeing-tour-seattle. You might have to press control and clock the mouse on these links.

We visited the “future of flight” exhibition where we could get up close to parts of planes and read stuff about recycling planes into houses, water storages and all sorts of other uses. There is not much thickness to the structural outer skin of the modern planes, the skin is a composite material, stronger than steel and lighter than aluminiun and a huge weight saver.

We had a great view from the lookout deck, with snow capped mountains in the distance. 28 degrees and clear today, with the mountains made for stunning sights. Mt Rainier is the snow covered volcano in the distance.

Apparently Seattle has only about 80 clear days per year, so we were very lucky.

Then it was back to the northern edge of town for a “lock cruise”. I bet that surprises you. Our one way boat trip went from Union Lake, through the Freemont canal, Salmon Bay, through the Hiram M Crittenden Locks and around to Pier 55 at the Seattle seafront.

We caught the public bus back to where we started the boat trip (and left the car), then drove back to the car rental premises to leave the car, (sae tomorrow morning) and walked back to the hotel, buying a couple of bottles of wine on the way to take onto the cruise boat tomorrow. Another great Mexican meal nearby.

Seattle feels like a very comfortable city to be in and it’s a pity we don’t have a lot more time.

There probably won’t be any posts for a couple of days, have to see what we can find in the ports the cruise boat stops in.