Seattle Area

Wednesday was a long, unproductive day, or so it seemed. We were slow getting away from our campground and into an area where we had better cell phone reception to the internet. We stopped in the parking lot of a gas station near the interstate and started calling all the campgrounds we could find in the Seattle area. One told us they gave their last site away just as we called and another gave one away 20 minutes before we called. If we had just moved a little faster! We finally found a campground called Tall Chief in Fall City that claims to be only 25 minutes from downtown. But after we had set up, John discovered that the power was bad on our site so we had to move sites. And all the roads in the campground are gravel and gets our vehicles all dirty. And its almost too far to walk to the showers and . . . . Oh, well, we are here and settled in.

The traffic here is HORRIBLE! Even on a late Wednesday morning we got caught up in a jam and then after supper the traffic was slow as we tried to get to a grocery store. At least today we traveled against the worst of the traffic jams and didn't get caught in one.

On the top of our list of things to do in Seattle was the tour of the Boeing Aircraft Plant where the 707's, 747's 787's and all the other huge airliners are assembled. The plant is in the suburb of Everett. The building is the largest building in the world by volume. Imagine placing California's Disney World and its parking lots inside this space and still have room for 100 cars. The plant takes up about 95 acres of land and is about 1/2 mile wide and we're not sure how long but probably close to 3/4 mile. Parts of it are 11 stories tall. We stood on an observation deck four stories up and there were still at least three stories overhead. We watched them assembling six 777's and six 787's and there were at least 4-6 jumbo jets in each of 2 or 3 other bays. They employ over 29,000 people and work 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They even have space to test the engines and test fly every jet that leaves the plant. We saw 3 buildings where the jets are painted and rows and rows of planes ready to be picked up by airlines all around the world. When they move the jets out of the building and onto the tarmac they have to cross an interstate highway so all that distraction of a jet over the road is done at night when few cars are on the road. You are not allowed to take any cameras or cell phones on the tour so the picture we took doesn't show the magnitude of the operation.

We had lunch in Mukliteo on the Puget Sound. This lighthouse has been there since 1906. The Sound is so pretty with the surrounding mountains reflected in the clear blue water.

Just a short drive to Woodinville we found over 100 wineries. We were just looking for Chateau Ste. Michelle and found it and the Columbia Winery nestled in among all these other wineries. All of them are tasting rooms with the grapes coming from the Columbia Valley in the east central part of the state which makes sense if you consider where all the people live. They are not likely to drive four or five hours to taste wine when they can drive 30 minutes to Woodinville. We also stopped in J. Bookwalter Winery.