Tuesday we picked up our rental car from Enterprise. I had reserved a compact car, but the only car available was a new Jeep Grand Cherokee 4x4. They let me have it at the price of a compact, so we're really stylin' in Seattle now.
Tuesday afternoon, we went for a tour of the Boeing assembly plant. It was very interesting, but a little sterile. I had memories of touring a GM assembly plant in Arlington, TX and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, MS years ago and both were much more "up close and personal". I think these days of terrorism and industrial espionage have probably resulted in diminished enjoyment of a lot of things, including tours of industrial plants. Nonetheless, the Boeing plant was impressive. We saw several planes being assembled, including the new 787 Dreamliner. Probably the most impressive thing, however, was the sheer size of the assembly building where they assemble all of their widebody planes. It's touted as the largest building in the world by volume. At this one facility, over 27,000 employees work.
After we got back from the Boeing plant, Emily dropped by with her Boxer Stella, and her new puppy Annie. Annie is a beauty, but she's the typical Boxer pup--all skin and bones with huge feet and inexhaustible energy. Although Stella is 4 1/2, she and Anne remind me of a couple of kids who can't keep their hands off each other. Emily says that they do stop scuffling sometimes, but you couldn't prove it by me. Benji wasn't impressed at all with his "cousins", but then Benji isn't crazy about any other dogs.
After playing with the dogs for a while, we went to dinner at a nearby Macaroni Grill and then visited a Borders Bookstore to make sure that few people had the new Harry Potter book (and CDs) before us.
This morning, we got up early and drove about an hour and a half to Anacortes, WA, to catch the San Juan Island Ferry. There was a low, patchy fog as we left the dock, but it soon dissipated, 
and we had sunny skies the rest of the day. Our first stop was Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, the largest and most "touristy" of the towns. 
We walked off the ferry, browsed around a while and then decided to take the inter-island ferry back to Anacortes. We stopped and had lunch on Orcas Island 
and stopped but didn't get off the ferry on Shaw and Lopez Islands. Shaw and Lopez both appear to be quaint, rural islands. The highlight of the trip was sighting a bald eagle who appeared to be nesting in a tree close to one of the ferry docks. I was envious of those passengers who had large telephoto lenses on their cameras, but I was able to get a couple of pictures where you can actually tell that it was bald eagle. 
To top it off, on the way back to Anacortes, I noticed that Mt. Baker had peeked out from behind the clouds. What a gorgeous peak!
and we had sunny skies the rest of the day. Our first stop was Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, the largest and most "touristy" of the towns. We walked off the ferry, browsed around a while and then decided to take the inter-island ferry back to Anacortes. We stopped and had lunch on Orcas Island and stopped but didn't get off the ferry on Shaw and Lopez Islands. Shaw and Lopez both appear to be quaint, rural islands. The highlight of the trip was sighting a bald eagle who appeared to be nesting in a tree close to one of the ferry docks. I was envious of those passengers who had large telephoto lenses on their cameras, but I was able to get a couple of pictures where you can actually tell that it was bald eagle. To top it off, on the way back to Anacortes, I noticed that Mt. Baker had peeked out from behind the clouds. What a gorgeous peak!We got back to Anacortes about 3:00 and back to our RV Park about 4:30. All in all, it was a good day--perfect weather, beautiful scenery, small crowds and the round trip fare was only $14 each.
More later
1 comment:
Eagle schmeagle. Those are the most beautiful dogs I've ever seen!
- eci
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