Favorite Son's Spiel : O Canada!

This morning we said farewell to the Baxters in Bellingham, thanking them for their above and beyond hospitality (we were given brownies and cashews before we were allowed to leave). We headed twenty miles north to see Peace Arch Park which is in both the United States and Canada. The GPS decided Canada’s side of the park was better and led us to the border crossing. There was no U-turn, so we pulled up to the gate and explained our situation to the border worker. He asked for identification and we handed him our driver’s licenses which was all we had. He took pity on us stupid Americans and had other workers open a barricade that led to the line entering the U.S. and we waited to enter our home country. For about forty minutes, I was in a different country for the first time as we inched closer to the gate leading to the U.S. Two different border patrol workers came up to the car before we even reached the gate and asked us where we were going and we explained our situation to them. They were nice and understanding and continued to let us move towards the United States. When we finally reached the gate, we crossed the border only to be detained. They escorted us to Customs while a border patrol worker took our driver’s licenses and went in the back to verify our citizenship. After another forty-five minutes of waiting, we were cleared to continue our road trip in the good ole USA. We decided not to press our luck by going to Peace Arch Park and headed south to Everett to visit our friend Mavi.

On Canadian soil

Let us back in please

Even though it was only 40 minutes, it felt good to be back in the USA

An hour later, we arrived in Everett at Mavi’s house and were given the grand tour. Mavi has been fixing up the house she and her husband Bob bought. She had already painted the living room, hung up curtains, and built a dining table by the time we came to visit and still had several other projects she was currently working on. We chatted for a bit while munching on pastries she had made for us. Like the Baxters, Mavi attended our church for years and moved to Washington after she married Bob. We needed to make our way to the nearby Boeing airplane tour before it got too late, so we said our thank yous and goodbyes to Mavi and drove south once again.

We arrived at the Boeing Future of Flight building and bought our tickets for the tour. The tour led us through the assembling plant of various commercial airplanes the company constructs. The building in which the aircraft are put together is the biggest building in the world by volume, about six-four acres. To put that in perspective, you could fit DisneyLand in that building and still have room to spare. We were able to see planes being put together, painted, and inspected. We also saw their newest airplane, the 787, being constructed. Overall, it was an impressive operation and almost convinced me to buy a plane of my own. Could anyone loan me $365 million? We had to get to Seattle to see the sights, so we left Boeing and drove towards Seattle.

DisneyLand can fit in that building

After enjoying the rush hour traffic Seattle offers, we made it to the rainy city which actually had pretty clear skies. The first destination was a tour of the underground city of old Seattle. Back in the late 1800s, a fire burned down the entire city of Seattle which had some sewage management problems. When rebuilding the city, it was actually built about fifteen feet above the original town in order to place sewage pipes under the city. Some the old town is still accessible and we toured three of these areas. Our tour guide was quite entertaining and educated us well about how the fire started and the effects of raising the level of the rebuilt city. After the tour, we walked over to Pike’s Place, a region with lots of stores and stands which for the most part were closed due to the late hour. Though it was around nine at night, we couldn’t visit Seattle and not go to the Space Needle according to Joe. So we drove over to the towering structure and rode the elevator to see Seattle from 520 ft. The view was amazing and you could literally see all of the city. We got back in our car at 10:30 pm and headed to our hotel in Eugene, Oregon which was only a short four and a half hours away. We arrived at 3:30 am, a road trip record for the latest arrival time we’ve ever had at any destination. Tomorrow, if we’re awake, we’ll visit Voodoo Donuts and make our way down to Sacramento for the night.