Visiting Friends

We only moved about 40 miles today. Dianna had made arrangements to meet Sue Spink, a long time friend who now lives in Vancouver, WA. We parked the rig in an RV park in Ridgefield, WA and drove the truck down to town. Dianna and Sue were friends in junior high school and have maintained contact all these years.

We had a nice visit all afternoon and realized it was dinner time. We went out to dinner at Whosong and Larry’s Mexican Restaurant which is located on the Columbia River just east of the I-5 bridge. We ate outside and the scenery was very pleasant.

After dinner Sue took us on a tour of downtown Vancouver and across the river through downtown Portland, OR as well. Portland has an active nightlife in its downtown area.

We did not get home until almost 10PM.

Mt. St. Helens

I guess this is no longer the Alaska Journal, but in our mind we are still returning so we will continue to post about our journey.

Today we saw as much as we could of Mt. St. Helens. Unfortunately, it was very overcast today so that was not much. We went to three of the five visitor centers, which were interesting, but we turned around before we got to the last two since we were in the clouds and visibility was about 50 feet.

We did drive into what was part of the original blast zone when the volcano blew up in 1980. It sure does not seem like it has been 27 years! Shortly after the explosion the federal government took a part of the area around the mountain and turned it into a National Monument. Much of the rest of the area is owned by Weyerhaeuser. Two different approaches have been used in the two areas. The National Monument has been allowed to remain completely natural. The Weyerhaeuser part was harvested and replanted as quickly as possible.

The part of the mountain we were in was the Weyerhaeuser part. It is hard if not impossible to tell that anything happened. The trees that were planted in the early 1980’s are now 20 to 30 feet tall and it looks like the area outside the blast area. The area within the National Monument is also recovering, but not nearly as rapidly. Unfortunately, like I explained, we were not able to see this for ourselves because of the low clouds, but we watched several movies and saw displays in the visitor centers.

We got to thinking and realized it has been at least 30 years since we have been in this part of the country. We have not been up here since Mt. St. Helens exploded. That is really surprising since this is one of my favorite parts of the country. We need to spend a summer up here sometime in the near future. There is so much to see and it is so pretty.

More photos uploaded

We are in Castle Rock, Washington tonight and will spend tomorrow touring the Mt. St. Helens area.

I uploaded the rest of the pictures we took in Southern British Columbia. You can check them out on our gallery.

Boeing Tour

Today I decided to ride the scooter down to Everett and visit Boeing’s Future of Flight Center and take the plant tour. In a word -- disappointing.

It was overcast this morning so I put on my cold weather gear and rode the 40 miles to the Boeing facility. The Future of Flight Center and Tour Center is a very impressive building, with lots of stainless steel and glass. Inside on the main floor are two stores where you can buy very overpriced sweatshirts and the usual tourist stuff with the word Boeing on it. There is also a café that is open during the lunch hour.

The Future of Flight Center is downstairs. It is built using the new high tech approach so many places are using where they place LCD monitors around the room and let you watch a short video at each location. There was one for each of the 700 series of airplanes, but they were each only about a minute long and were of excellent production quality but very short on real information. There were a few static displays that were OK. They had an engine from a 747 opened up, a cut away of a 737 near the rear so you could see what was below the floor, a mock up of the cabin and cockpit of the new 787 and a landing gear. There may have been a couple other things, but I don’t remember what they were so they did not make much impression on me.

Then it was time for my tour. First, we were not allowed to take any electronic device with us. No cameras or even cell phones. We were gathered in an auditorium where they showed us two 7 minute videos. The first was just pictures of many of the aircraft, spacecraft, helicopters and other products Boeing builds. There was no narration, just the video. They then showed another 7 minute video that was a collapsing of the four months of 777 assembly into 7 minutes. It was OK, but nothing exciting.

Then they loaded us on a bus and drove us to the assembly building. They told us about the building itself and about some of the aircraft we saw on the way out. We parked by the building and were ushered down a set of stairs, through a tunnel and into a freight elevator that took us up to a balcony at the fourth floor level. From there we could see the assembly line for the 777 and see the first 787 sitting on the other side. Nothing was moving and it was really not very exciting to look at. The tour guide explained how the aircraft move from location to location during the assembly process. I figured we would go see the other aircraft assembly areas and sub assembly areas, or maybe the paint shop, or even just drive around the building or down the flight line so we could see some of the other new airplanes being built, but we just drove back to the Tour Center and the tour was over. We only spent about 15 minutes in the assembly building itself, and about 10 minutes driving each way. All together the whole tour lasted just about an hour.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, but when I toured the Cessna plant in Wichita last year we were shown the whole place, driven around to see all kinds of different planes, made several stops and even had an opportunity to walk through the factory itself. The Cessna tour was free. The tour I took today cost $17.50. My brother Don who works for Boeing could take the tour for half price as long as he has his employee badge with him. Save your money, Don.

The sun was out by the time the tour was over so the ride back to the campground was more pleasant. Dianna spent the day doing laundry and playing on the internet. We found someone in the park who has an open wireless router and are using his connection. It is better than most of the services we have had on our trip.

Tomorrow we will move further south. We are not sure where.

Visiting Relatives

It was another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest with record high temperatures. For this area that means the high was 84. It was perfect scooter weather again.

Dianna had contacted her aunt and some cousins on her father’s side who had moved up here years ago. We arranged to meet them and the scooter was the way to go. Our first stop was in Stanwood where our mail was waiting for us and then we took the back roads down to Kirkland where her relatives live. It was a little over 60 miles and a great ride.

We had a nice visit with Aunt Martha and cousins Bob and Terry. It had been a long time. Bob worked on the Alaska Pipeline so it was fun showing him the pictures of our trip up the Dalton Highway. He said it had changed some, but mostly because he had never seen much of it during the summer. He worked mostly in the winter season.

The trip back north was less pleasant due to rush hour traffic. We ended up taking the freeway part of the way just because the back roads were not moving at all. It took a little longer to get home due to the traffic but it was not bad.

We walked across the street to a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. It was surprisingly good and was the first we have had in a long time. Then we watched TV for a while and went to bed early. 130 miles on the scooter in heavy traffic can be tiring.

Back in the lower 48

They let us back in! We drove down the beautiful Fraser River Valley and got in line to cross the border at Sumas, WA. We waited in line for about 1 hour and 20 minutes until it was our turn. Once again it seemed like everyone else took a long time with the customs agent, but it seemed we were only there a minute. He asked where we lived (Texas), where we had been (Alaska), and when we left for Alaska (early June). Then he asked if we had purchased anything while in Canada (souvenirs for the grandkids) and if I used to be a truck driver (no, just a big trailer). What did you do before you retired, (Worked with computers for Ross Perot)? He then said “I voted for him. Welcome home.”

That was it. No questions about meat, produce or anything else. Of course, if we had not eaten it all up he would have wanted to inspect the trailer.

We found an RV park about 15 minutes from where our mail is supposed to come. It should be here tomorrow if we are lucky. The first thing I did was unload the scooter and ride to the nearest Wells Fargo Bank to get some cash. We used all but a couple dollars in Canada and I did not want to pay the $5 fee for using a non Wells Fargo ATM and have to deal with getting rid of Canadian cash so we waited until we were south of the border.

The park we are in is quite nice except they do not have any wireless internet. It seems strange that any park till does not since it is almost expected any more. But, there are plenty of Starbucks and every other kind of coffee shop up here to use for internet.

I’m not sure it feels any different to be back in the US. There is always a nagging feeling that you are not in your country when you are in Canada, but since everything we are doing is pretty superficial and touristy, noticing any big differences would be pretty hard to do. Other than not having to convert kilometers, liters and Celsius temperatures it is pretty much the same. So, I guess it is nice to be back in familiar places.

Minter Gardens

Today was our last full day in Canada, and what a beautiful day it was. Not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the upper 70’s. It was another perfect day for a scooter ride.

We rode about 25 miles down the Trans Canada Highway toward Vancouver to the town of Chilliwack where Minter Gardens is located. It is 33 acres of beautiful flowers, gardens, cedar forests, fountains, statues, pools and waterfalls. We spent about three hours wandering around, looking and relaxing.

Tomorrow we plan to enter the US at Sumas, WA and probably stay at a campground near Stanwood, WA for a few days. That is north of Seattle but relatively close to some of Dianna’s relatives that we have not seen for a few years.

After that we will continue down through Washington to just north of Portland where she wants to visit a high school friend she has not seen for years. Then through Oregon and into California as the temperatures allow. We don’t know what route we will take or when we will be where. The only place we have tentatively planned to visit is the Mt. Saint Helens area, and maybe the Boeing Plant tour while in the Seattle area.