Bainbridge and Boeing

Monday last week was a public holiday for Victoria Day (Queen Victoria's birthday), so we made the most of our long weekend by heading across the border to Seattle.

On Friday night we had tickets to see Mary Poppins at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. I had been wanting to see this ever since we were living in England and it finished its London run before we had a chance to go. And as the Seattle show was the touring Broadway production, we were quite looking forward to it!

However, due to an unfortunate series of events - including Ben getting stuck at work for 2 hours longer than he had intended, a 40 minute border wait, and our GPS taking us to the wrong theatre location - we missed the entire first half of the musical!! We arrived during the intermission, feeling quite frazzled, and then spent the first part of the second half having this conversation:

"Is that Mary Poppins?"
"No, I think that's the mum."
"Is that Mary Poppins?"
"No, that's the replacement nanny. Mary Poppins must have left."
"I suppose Mary Poppins is going to fly in with her umbrella."
"Yes, no doubt."
"...Ooh, that's Mary Poppins!!"

Anyway, we did quite enjoy the second half. It was certainly an excellent production, and the theatre was stunning - as grand or grander than the ones on West End in London! We missed hearing Supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus (except the reprise), but enjoyed Let's Go Fly A Kite and Chim Chim Cher-ee. One of the most impressive moments was when the chimney sweep walked up the wall at the side of the stage (via invisible wires), across the top (upside-down), and down the other side... tap-dancing and singing the whole way!!

We had the cheapest category of tickets, in the third level mezzanine - so we were quite far back from the stage, plus about three storeys higher!! Here are some photos taken from our mezzanine after the show was over...




That night we stayed with Ben's second cousin Connie. In the morning we soaked up the view of Lake Washington from her apartment balcony, sipping coffee and munching on granola-yoghurt parfaits. It was a short but sweet visit!

We took the 8:45am ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island (a 35 minute ride), where we were to spend the weekend with Brian and Sue and little Kendra, their friends Derek and Kate and little Zoe, and Sue's parents Glenn and Hazel (whose home we were all staying at). Sue's sister Jo and her work friend Tiffany joined us later on, too. It had been 2.5 years since we last visited their home, and that time Hazel had been in Australia. It was great to finally take them up properly on the invitation they had extended to us almost 3 years ago, when we first met Glenn and Hazel in England (Hazel is related to some of our friends there)!

You can imagine our surprise when, upon meeting Derek and Kate for the first time, Derek and Ben turned out to be second cousins once removed!! Derek's great grandmother and Ben's grandfather were siblings. It's a very small world sometimes!

The boys' task for the day was chopping down - and chopping up - a huge tree at Glenn's office. They spent about 10 hours swinging chainsaws, axes, and large blocks of wood around, and there was subsequently a great deal of moaning and groaning in the house that evening!! The only photo we have of the day's work is the one below, which I took when we ladies arrived bearing lunch for the men. Ben says the tree they cut down was taller than the one that is still standing in the centre of this photo!



Meanwhile, Hazel, Sue, Kendra, Kate, Zoe and I had a considerably less taxing morning at the local farmers' market!


Kate and Zoe...



This folk band was great!


We had a relaxing afternoon at Glenn at Hazel's home, and delicious green curry for dinner once the weary men arrived back.

Clockwise from left: Ben, Tiffany, Jo, Hazel, Glenn, Sue, Brian, Kate, Derek...


The next morning, Ben took this panorama from Glenn and Hazel's verandah. Their home looks out over the Puget Sound, with the Seattle skyline visible in the distance. It's an awesome location!



After going to the meeting on the Olympic Pensinsula (which is to the west of Bainbridge Island and accessed by bridge, whereas Seattle to the east is accessed by ferry), we returned to Glenn and Hazel's for a yummy lunch of barbecued ribs, chicken wings and salad.

Here's Glenn manning the BBQ...


Zoe...


Kendra...


Derek learning the Tim Tam Slam...


Hazel doing the Slam while Sue looks on...


That evening we headed back to the mainland via ferry, and stayed the night at Brian and Sue's home. On Monday morning, we went shopping with Sue and Kendra. We stocked up on Bundaberg Ginger Beer from Cost Plus World Market, and did a bit of clothes shopping.


Then, after having lunch with Sue and Kendra back at their home, we said goodbye and headed north to the Future of Flight Aviation Centre and Boeing Tour in Everett, where we joined the 2:30pm tour. Ben had done this tour with his parents 8 years ago, but quite enjoyed doing it again, as Boeing has since brought in the 777 and 787.

The tour was very interesting, and the scale of everything was awe-inspiring (but no cameras allowed, sorry!). After watching a video, we were taken by bus to the largest building in the world... it is 40 hectares (100 acres), which the guide told us would fit 900+ hockey rinks! In this shed are multiple production lines where Boeing aircraft are made. The tour guide took us to two different viewing platforms, which we reached by walking through tunnels under the building (each tunnel is 1.3 miles long, the width of the shed) and then going up in an elevator to a raised section that looked out across the production lines. The tunnels had 10 feet of cement above them.

From the first viewing platform, we saw 747-8s being made. From the second platform, we saw a 777 production line on one side, and the new 787s on the other. The 777 side was a moving production line, which the planes were progressing through at some incredibly slow rate like 1.5 inches per minute. So slow we couldn't see them move, anyway! In each production line, we saw a number of planes at various stages of completion, and some had signs indicating which airline had ordered them.

The new 787s are made of a composite material that is stronger than steel and lighter than aluminium. Their wing tips are raked back and up, their windows are 60% bigger, and their seats are 1.5 inches wider. It'll be a few more years before most of us get to fly in one though!

After our 90 minute tour ended, we went up to the roof of the visitor centre and Ben took some photos of the planes and sheds where our tour had taken us. The panorama below is the leftmost third of a 34-photo-wide panorama he took - the pixel size of the original is so big that some of the programs on our computer can't process it! Click here to see the whole thing.


This is a DreamLifter: a modified 747 used to transport sections of planes - manufactured in other locations/ countries - to the production lines...


We then headed north for the border and home, stopping en route for apple cider...


...and scrumptious pizza at La Fiamma Pizza in Bellingham (a sister restaurant to our favourite Bellingham burger joint, Fiamma Burger... but this is our new #1!).


Then it was on to Trader Joe's in Bellingham for our obligatory grocery shop.

As Ben had seen on his phone's border wait app that the Peace Arch border (our usual crossing spot) had a 110 minute wait and the Abbotsford crossing had only 10 minutes, we decided to drive to Abbotsford. It's further away but it always feels better to be driving than sitting in a line-up! As it turned out, the country roads through the Nooksack area were a joy to drive - we couldn't get over how beautiful the fields, farms and mountains looked in the glow of the setting sun.




The border wait really was only 10 or 15 minutes, and we got home around 9pm. It was a lovely weekend away... thanks to those who helped make it so!