May 11 -- Back to Seattle

We left Vancouver early this morning headed for Seattle with a few stops along the way. Our first stop was at the Boeing assembly plant in Everett, Washington, where they assemble the 747 and the 777. It will also be where they assemble the 787 and they already have the area prepared to start. The shot of the building doesn't do it justice. For example, each of the blue doors you see are over 3 football fields wide, but they don't look that large in the picture. They do not allow cameras on the tour, so we had to take our shots from a distance. The building you see is the one we toured. It is also the building Matt Lauer was in last week when he started his annual series "Where in the World is Matt Lauer." The building has been certified by the Guinness book of world records as the largest building in the world by volume. It is 2.2 miles around and could hold all of Disneyland with 12 acres left over for parking. Apparently Matt talked about rain clouds forming inside. That happened shortly after the building was built in 1963, but was immediately corrected. Jennifer, the tour we took today was a lot diffferent then the one you and I took in 1998. This one was shorter and focused on what tourists want to hear and see versus their environmental programs. It was not as up close and personal as the one we got in 1998. It was still very interesting. After leaving Boeing, we drove to Chateau St. Michelle Winery. The grounds and buildings were gorgeous. And since this is one of our favorite Washington wineries, we just had to buy a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. It was outstanding. Next, we drove to Snoqualmie Falls. The falls are still very impressive, Jennifer, and very loud. We then went into Snoqualmie, which was used as part of the setting for the filming of the TV series--Twin Peaks. We learned from the train conductor that some of the filming was done 3 miles down the road at North Bend and that Twede's Cafe was still serving "a damn good cup of coffee" and cherry pie. (That must have been said in the TV program.) Of course we had to go and see for ourselves. They were both pretty darn good. We stopped in Snoqualmie Ridge shopping center at Great Clips to have our hair cut. Rudy did Jack's hair and Debbie did Joann's. We wanted to pack them up and take them home with us, but Rudy said he was pretty expensive so we sadly left them behind. If you're ever in Snoqualmie look them up. We ended the day in Seattle and we are all packed for the cruise tomorrow. We're very excited.