We visited Glacier Park in northern Montana and had a great time. The scenery is amazing -- in fact, as one person I talked said, "It is so spectacular, it seems like it should be fake!" -- but it is not.

Here is Lake MacDonald which you pass if you enter the park from the western side. A very deep lake, it is several miles long.

Orinda and Cody are duly impressed by the lake shore. The lake is crystal clear and beautiful.


We passed the Lake and continued on the famous Going to the Sun Road. This road, completed in 1932, seems to hang in space off the side of the mountains.

You can see from this typical shot that there is no guardrail between you and the great beyond. Sometimes, there is a low, rock wall, but it looks REAL low when driving. Glad we were in the HHR which is small and easy to maneuver.


Of course, if it is summer, there is construction! There were several spots where the road was one lane (using a flagger to control traffic). You can see how close the lanes are to the edge of the mountain and the solid rock wall. Needless to say, large vehicles (over 21' long) are prohibited.


There was one wonderful view after another . If you look closely, you can see the road cutting across the mountain face (the white line to the right side). This is a drive to remember!


On the eastern side of the park is Lake St. Mary which is fed by glacial runoff. Another large lake, this one offers wonderful views as the mountains drop right to the edge of the lake.

Cody was thrilled with the ride and the lake, as you can see. He is a real trouper and loves to come in the car. As a result, he gets to go with us quite a bit, which works out great.

Visiting Spokane, WA -- a great stop!

We had the opportunity to touch base with Larry and Shirley, good folks we met last winter in Arizona while we visited Spokane. It was great to see them again as well as have them show us the highlights of the area. In addition to taking us to see Spokane, we visited Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and had a great dinner overlooking the marina. What a beautiful place this was!



The next day, we got the full tour of the Spokane area while Larry and Shirley showed us around. One of our first stops was at the Glover Mansion, a magnificent home that is now used for receptions and special events. This 12,000 sq. ft. home was incredible.

Our next stop was Manito Park, which as you can see, offer incredible gardens and displays. We were really impressed to see such wonderful flowers as well as unique plants from all over.

There were two green houses that hold tropical plants of all kinds. One house featured desert plants while the other displayed magnificent flowers.

This interesting flower was typical of the many, many flowers that surrounded us. What a great way to spend a couple of hours with friends.

Spokane still had much more to offer and we had a late lunch at the Flour Mill building in the Clinkerdagger Restaurant. This historic structure is right on the falls of the Spokane River and we had lunch directly overlooking the water. After a great meal, we walked along the Expo '74 area where the World's Fair was held in 1974. This is all a beautiful park area now and we had a great time! Be sure to check these areas out if you go near the Spokane area.

Visiting Microsoft and Boeing Aircraft Headquarters

Wow - look at these hippies -- and Orinda! Actually, these are the founding folks from Microsoft. The young guy in the left is Bill Gates! This is from the Microsoft Visitor Center in Redmond, WA. We were really impressed with the huge Microsoft Campus, but in all honesty, the visitor center was a bit of a let down. There was some interesting exhibits, but most of the display focused on the Zune or the XBox. I would have expected a bit more on the interesting history of the firm.

Still, it was fun to see things like this Atari 2600 -- the "old school" video game! I do recall thinking how cool these things were.

While in the area, we decided to visit the Boeing Headquarters. This tour turned out to be truly amazing! Orinda is shown standing at the entrance to the Visitor Center which houses many of the Boeing historical displays and aircraft.

This engine shows how big the new engine for the 787 Dreamliner aircraft will be. This thing is HUGE! The Dreamliner is just about to enter airliner service and will be a revolutionary ship. Built out of mostly composites, it is much lighter than current airliners and as a result, offers 20% better fuel economy.

This is one of the first Dreamliners ever built! This 787 is undergoing final tests and is about ready for delivery. UPDATE (8/12/09)-- this is the info from the Boeing Tour guide and based on a couple of comments I have received, apparently is not quite accurate. As a result, I did some research and sure enough, the 787 is not quite ready for prime time -- see Boeing 787 for details. Interestingly, Boeing is building these on the assembly line and apparently storing them on the flight line. Hopefully, flight testing will be underway soon.

This building is amazing. It encloses 98 acres under roof and houses the assembly lines for the 747, 767, and 787 aircraft. We were able to actually take a tour of this building and watch these huge airliners being built. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed on the tour, but it is well worth your time if you are in the Seattle area.

We toured the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks today in Seattle and really enjoyed the area! These locks connect Lake Washington to the Puget Sound so that the freshwater lake connects with the saltwater sound. Run by the Army Corps of Engineers, the area also includes a fish ladder and a botanical gardens.

There are two locks available -- one 150' long lock and one 825' lock that can house very large vessels -- or LOTS of smaller ones. We watched many boats lock through in the couple hours we were there.

In addition to the locks, we were able to watch the salmon swim upstream, through the fish ladder. As you can see from the photo above, hundreds of salmon are waiting to swim up the ladder and enter Lake Washington.

The ladder had some windows in the wall so that we could see the salmon as they moved upstream. Wow -- wish I could catch this one -- it looks to be about 2' long.

Rick is watching the large lock fill with boats as they are ready to lift up to the lake level (about 15' higher). This is quite a delicate process since each boat has to be tied up correctly and be ready to handle the lines for the lift. It was fun to watch the various skippers carefully move their boats into position -- some with less skill than others!

After about 30 minutes of loading, the boats are ready to be lifted. I would guess there are about 50 boats of all sizes waiting to go up!

We also enjoyed the Botanical Gardens where we strolled through many beautiful flowers. Not sure what they were, but we really liked seeing them. This free attraction is a great place to spend a few hours!

The Wooden Boat Foundation and Fort Worden

Port Townsend is the home to the Wooden Boat Foundation and a thriving group of wood boat enthusiasts. As a result, there are all kinds of beautiful wooden boats -- both new and old.



One really interesting firm that is in the area is the Pygmy Boat company. This firm produces amazing kayaks and canoes out of wood that are available in kit form. You can get an idea as to the high quality of these boats from the picture above. Amazingly, these boats only weigh from 35 to 45 pounds!
Cody and Orinda wanted to check out the other wooden boats moored at the docks. There was quite a variety of boats ranging from sail to power and everything else.


The picture really does not do justice to the high quality of these boats. I suspect that back "in the day", these wooden, working boats did not come near to the beauty of these.

Located a few blocks directly north of Port Townsend was Fort Worden, a coastal defense installation. From 1902 to 1953, the Fort served as a main point of defense for shipping in the Puget Sound area. The Fort housed quite a few service men and is in amazing condition, with all the buildings now under control of the Washington State Parks organization.

Orinda shows us some of the munitions that were used in the Fort over the 50 years that it was active. The base museum is a wonderful look into the past of the Army and the surrounding area.


Here, Cody and Rick show one of the gun emplacements standing watch over the water approaches. This gu was fired 16 times over a period of 26 years -- less than once a year!

Port Townsend has a real, working marina and boat yard that Cody loved to explore. There were all kinds of vessels here, from the small to the very large.

The marina has three Travel-lifts that can lift and transport boats up to 300 tons! This is the baby Travel lift that hoisted this 35' sailboat up like it was nothing. The owner was going to clean and paint the hull.

You can get an idea as to the boats that were in repair from this small sample. There were a number of classic, wood boats that were being restored to mint condition. Naturally, Rick thought this was great, given his interest in wood working.

Here is a sample of a beautiful craft (about 55') that has been restored. This is a wood hull that is coated in clear epoxy and was just amazing.

Orinda even found this interesting and you can see Cody was in his element. Our big focus was to keep the dog OUT of the water!

This shows about 20% of the harbor area and you can get a good idea as to the number of boats docked here. The water was also crystal clear and beautiful. Plus, since this is right in downtown Port Townsend, there is quite a bit to do. A great stop!

Port Townsend, The UnderSeas Museum and Don's

We drove from Olymipia to the western side of the Olympic Pennisula in the Port Townsend area. We stayed at the Excapees Evergreen Coho park which worked great. This was centrally located so we could explore the entire area with the car.

Getting to Port Townsend was very interesting and we had to cross not only the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, but also the Hood Canal floating bridge, seen above. Both bridges have an interesting past -- the first Narrows bridge suffered a collapse in the 40's from wind -- a famous engineering failure. The Hood Bridge is one of the longest floating bridges in the world.

As we passed Bremerton, we saw these aircraft carriers in the mothball fleet. This is where ships go when they have served and are retired. This one is CV 6, the USS Independence.

Between Port Townsend and Bremerton, is Keyport and the home of the US Navy's Underseas Museum. This is really worth a stop! Above, Rick gets to stand next to the real sail of the Sturgeon, hull #637. Interestingly, the sail of these submarines is wet -- it fills with water and is not used underseas.

The museum has an amazing collection of submarine history, torpedo development, and deapsea diving. Rick is showing a special kind of mine that was used during Vietnam.

We then went to Port Townsend for a quick look. What an amazing town, right on the water front. We will be spending a couple days exploring this area.

Before we left, Rick noticed a drug store with a real, old time soda fountain. Well, we had to check this out! As you can see, they serve up an incredible hot fudge sundae and it was wonderful. We will likely come back here, too!