WEDNESDAY
& THURSDAY, SEPT 17 & 18:
We’re
definitely in the Puget Sound area – cool, drizzly rain, overcast both
days. Supposed to start a clearing,
sunnier trend tomorrow, though. That’s
partly why we decided to stay a week here . . . attempting to wait for the
weather to give us a few nice days to enjoy the city.
But we
made use of these two days by researching the bus schedule here – not an
insignificant undertaking! – and a lot of resting & relaxing. And last night we drove to my niece Sara’s
home for dinner. Though only north a few
exits on I-5, it took us a full hour to get there. And the problem wasn’t on the freeway – that
was fine once we got on it. It was on
the surface street from our RV park to the on-ramp – less than 3 miles. We absolutely crawled along that for over 30
minutes! We conjectured that it was the
Everett Boeing plant traffic getting off work, and we found out during our tour
today that that was correct. That
factory has been here for decades – why hasn’t the city upgraded the infrastructure
to deal with the traffic problems it creates??
But once we arrived, was well worth
it. Sara & Jon and their 2 boys,
Jameson (11) and Myles (9) are a wonderful family, and made us feel so very
welcome. I hadn’t seen Sara for over 10
years, when Jameson was an infant, when we met in downtown Seattle when I was
vacationing there (Lynn came up to visit them and was there as well). Hard to believe she’s nearly 40!! Wow.
They bought a travel trailer this summer, and took it down through Calif
for 2 ½ weeks in June. They spent time
in the redwoods, and a day in Yosemite on the way back, as well as time in the
L.A. area with Mother (of course, Sara’s grandmother, whom she hadn’t seen for
over 10 years). So we had a lot of fun
comparing travel stories.
Today, we
took a tour of the Boeing factory here in Everett. Well worth the ticket price and time. Very impressive. It’s the largest building (by volume) under
one roof in the world. Some 43,000
employees work here in Everett – hence the massive traffic problems! They assemble all of the wide-bodied planes here
(the single-aisle commercial planes are assembled in the Renton plant). Our tour focused on the huge 747 and the new
787, the Dreamliner. We got to watch the
production lines on these 2 planes from viewing balconies above. The sheer size of those planes and the scale
of the manufacturing/assembly process is just astounding. When you see a person standing beside one of
the plane fuselages or wings, or even beside an engine, it gives you a true
perspective. Equally astonishing is the
efficiency in the assembly process. The
entire factory floor looked clean and streamlined, even with all of the cranes,
machinery, etc. They complete one plane,
ready for delivery, every few days. A
short film at the beginning of our tour provided another amazing contextual
perspective: Just over 200 years ago, it
took George Vancouver just about 1 year to make his trip from England to
present-day Oregon & Washington.
Today, that trip is made in less than 1 day. It rekindled
my pride in having been part of this organization, which William Boeing began almost
100 years ago.
Got home mid-afternoon, and the soggy atmosphere made our RV feel so cozy, and me so sleepy. I had the most luxurious nap I’ve had in a long time – felt wonderful!
Just had sandwiches for dinner.
Bob will be jealous!
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