Road Trip, Day 16 - Seattle & Everett (Tue 26 Nov)

Today Bren and I split up for the first time since we started with the road trip. She was keen to explore more of downtown Seattle and I was excited to get to a town called Everett, about 35km north of Seattle.

Unfortunately, by accident Brenda deleted most of her photos that she took in Seattle, but we did find some elsewhere in cyberspace:

 

Beechers handmade cheese

B seems to have been the first to visit here from Cape Town! ;-)

Colourful stuff luring the females of all species  . . .

Pike Place's famous fish market

 

Lovely!

Brenda's Holy Grail. Nuff said. 

 ***

Meanwhile.

Everett is home to Paine Field Airport. And Paine Field Airport is home to Boeing.

Needless to say I was itching to get there, and after negotiating Tuesday Seattle morning rush hour traffic, I arrived at the Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour.

This facility was purpose built to promote the Boeing company and bascially consists of an auditorium, large exhibition hall, viewing deck, gift shop & cafeteria. From here one depart for a tour of the Boeing manufacturing facility, which also happens to be the world's largest building by volume. And on the 'hangar doors' are graphics of various Boeing models (787, & 777), which apparantly is also the world's largest digital graphic.

Unfortunately, one is not allowed to take any pictures on the tour, but suffice to say that I found the experience FASCINATING. Anyone with a slight interest in aviation or in operational management should go and see this if they get the chance. I won't bore you here with all kinds of stats, but it truly is a great thing to see and exerience. Read up on the web if you want to know more about it and what it takes to manufacture the 747, 767, 777 and 787 all under one roof!

While waiting for my tour to depart, I did manage to get some shots of Paine Field, and was lucky enough to see a few aircraft depart, among them the Dreamlifter.

Paine Field

As far as large commercial jets go, only its mother can love this aircraft, as it is not considered beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. However, it was purposefully built to provide cost and time efficient transport for the manufacturing of the 787 Dreamliner, which is manufactured across the globe and basically just assembled here in Everett.

 

Something seems wrong with that joint  . . .

and away she goes

 While still drooling over the sound left in my ears from the take off of the dreamlifter, a Singapore 777 rolled closer to say hi and bye:

Pure beauty

Those engines are the largest jet engines in the world!

The 777 is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite airliner. I was aware that its engines are the largest and most powerful in the world, but according to our tour guide, the fuselage of a 737 will fit through the outer engine rings of those engines!

Anyhow - I managed to pull myself away from Paine Field and met up with Brenda again in Seattle to catch up after another amazing day. 

  

Road Trip, Day 15 - Vancouver Island to Seattle (Mon 25 Nov)

We left Maple Bay with a heavy heart, as it was sad to say goodbye.  However, today's travelling would again involve two ferries, and it is going to be through an area that I have studied on numerous occasions on a map, always wondering what it looked like in real life. 

The plan was to drive down to Victoria, then hop on to a ferry to Port Angeles, and then drive through the fjord like area between Seattle's Puget Sound and the Olympia National Forest. (By the way, Olympia is the state capital of Washington, not Seattle as I have always thought). Anyhow, the plan was to cover the following route:

Only around 250km's - but up to 6 hours??

Steph advised us that we should try and stop at a place called Goldstream Provincial Park, as this is an excellent spot to observe the salmon swimming upriver during their annual spawn. The mind boggles as to how they manage to find their way back to their birth place after years of living in the ocean. The park's website have some interesting info on this phenomenon. 

The gulls seemed very picky

Sickly, dead salmon

Its really sad to see the poor male salmon struggle upriver, just to come and fertilise the females eggs, without even any intercourse . . . poor guys. 

We made good time to Victoria and quickly found ourselves in the belly of the Blackball Ferry, for our lift across to Port Angeles, back in the good ol' U S of A.  First time I have entered the USA without getting a stamp in my passport.

Float planes in Victoria Harbour with the Empress hotel in the background.

 

Free Wi-fi now seems to be readily available throughout North America. Almost all airports, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants etc that we have been to, offers this service without charge. Even the ferry companies!

Bye bye Canada. O Canada . . 

And hello again America.

The beautiful Olympic mountains beckoned behind Port Angeles:

The port of Port Angeles.

Once we have cleared a bunch of grumpy customs officials, we had a scenic drive through the land on the western side of the Puget Sound. It is quite a similar coastline to what we have seen on Vancouver Island, so pretty indeed. Reaching Bainbridge Island, we had lunch while waiting for our ferry to take us across to Seattle.    

Docs Marina Grill

An early settler?

Bainbridge Island Marina

We arrived in Seattle during peak hour Monday afternoon traffic, but found our hotel courtesy of the wonderful global positioning system offered by iPhone.

Arrival into the port of Seattle

The view from our hotel in Seattle - sleepless indeed. 

We couldn't wait to explore Seattle by night, and just strolled through some well known areas, soaking up this stunning city.

Pike Place market by night.

Post Alley

Seattle Waterfront. Every city nowadays seems to have a big wheel. 

The Market Theater Gum Wall 

Upon closer inspection. . . yuck!

Alley full of graffiti 

Another awesome day!

Road Trip, Days 13 & 14: Vancouver Island with Deon & Steph! (Sat & Sun, 22-23 Nov)

After spending a few wonderful days in Vancouver, we were eager to meet up with Deon & Steph Human, our family that lives on Vancouver Island.  It was going to be the first time that I visit Deon & Steph at their house in Canada, although they have been living here for probably more than 20 years. I was keen to see their new spot as I have seen some nice photos of their house on Facebook since they moved there from Powell River.

Google maps indicated that it was less than 100km that we had to travel, but this included a ferry as Vanouver Island is just that - an island.

I followed Deon's advice and decided to make use of the Horseshoe Bay - Nanaimo (pronounced: naai-my-nou) ferry, which is quicker time wise than the Tsawwassen - Victoria Swartz bay route. The chosen route is highlighted in blue below:

Our plan for Saturday morning

The bigger picture - we are still in Canada, but only just!

At last the sun was out, and we were able to see what Vancouver looked like without rain:

Mark's apartment block in the West End

Travelling north on the Lionsgate Bridge

As usual, Brenda had some work to do, and fortunately she could find one of her offices at hand while we were waiting for the ferry in Horseshoe Bay:

Cocai . .  I mean caffeine fix

I have traveled a fair share in my life on boats and ships, but I always find it fascinating and exciting to watch car ferries operate, so I enjoyed this quick ride on the ferry across to Vancouver Island.

Car loading ramp - pulled up and ready to go

Foot passenger bridge

Our rental chariot and milady safely locked and loaded onboard - right in front

On our way

Beautiful Horseshoe Bay marina

  After arriving in Nanaimo, it was a quick but beautiful drive down to Maple Bay.

A nice time to visit!

 I sneaked a few peeks on Google Earth of Deon & Steph's place, but certainly wasn't expecting their location to be this amazing. When we arrived I could simply not stop looking at the view from their house, which overlooks Maple Bay. The few pictures that we took certainly did not do it justice:

Maple Bay in all its glory - taken from right in front of their house!  

Steph on the porch

Lone kayaker slipping past 

Maple Bay Rowing Club doing their thing on a late weekend afternoon

 We only had two nights and about one and a half days to spend in Maple Bay. On Sunday the call was made to go for a hike up Maple Mountain, against which their house is situated. Once again it was a stunning day to spend with stunning people:

On the way up. 

Taking a much needed break

Salt Spring Island (to the right behind us, I think Deon?)

On the other side of Maple Mountain looking towards the Cowichan Valley:

The town of Duncan is almost visible behind the lake on the left

Cutipie Skye - she and Hayley (their other doggie) made us miss our pooches tremendously . . .

We had some time during the late afternoon to go for a walk on the pebbled beach. What a wonderful, peaceful place this is to live in. Especially when it is such a perfect early evening.

What could be so amusing?!

Perhaps not Canada's widest beach . . .
(You can see their house sticking out behind me: Third one from the right in the bottom row)

Brenda busy with reflection ;-)

I was really sad to leave Deon & Steph behind. We certainly have not lost that special bond that has been there since our days of spending time together in the Freestate. Here those times felt like another life in another world. And it was.

Deon / Steph - than you SO much for your amazing hospitality, our awesome gifts and the long chats. We miss you dearly already.

And looking forward to catch up soon again - happy training!!