Boeing, Boeing: Seattle, Day 4 (8 July 2017)

Boeing, Boeing 707

Boeing, Boeing 707
Going, going, skywardly, heavenly 

Funny, or perhaps not, how often songs pop unbidden into my head. Today, as you’ve probably guessed, was our Boeing factory day. It was a tour day, the only way you can see the Boeing factory, so our feet had a little rest, as did Google Maps, as we let someone else do the navigating. (Garmin says we only walked 8.5 kms today.)

The tour encompasses the Future of Flight Museum (which was interesting enough) and Boeing’s factory, in Everett, about 25 miles north of Seattle. It is, currently anyhow, Guinness-certified as the largest building in the world. We were given comparatives, such as how many football fields it would occupy, etc, to help us understand but none of them made much sense to me. The one that did – just – was that it could fit all of Disneyland and still have 12 acres for car parking. Does that help you? Anyhow, it’s the factory where their twin-aisle or wide-body planes (Boeing 747, 767, 777, and 787) are assembled

The tour is very strict. You may not take anything with you – except your wallet. No mobile phones, no cameras, no backpacks, etc. Hence, we just have long shots – allowed – of exteriors. It truly was interesting, but we won’t bore you with details. The site has 35,000 employees. We went into two sections of the main assembly building. In the second one saw Boeing 787s (the new Dreamliner) under construction. We learnt about developments in this plane geared to improving flying experience, including reducing cabin pressure and mirroring the time-zone of the destination. This site apparently produces around 220 planes a year.

The tour took a bit over 4 hours, from pick-up to drop-off, and was worth doing – particularly for international travellers who wonder how and where the planes we fly in are built. (BTW, according to the tour guide, only 30% of Americans have passports. Google tells us that 50% or more Australians do.)

Oh, and apparently, Boeing’s 737, a single-aisle plane and not made at Everett, is currently the most successful passenger plane in the world. If you ordered one today, you would take delivery, we were told, in 10 years!!!

Do you speak pop culture?

So we were asked by the exterior wall of MoPop. Well, only a little, it turns out!

After the Boeing tour, the coach driver offered to drop us off at places besides our pick-up point, so we requested the Seattle Centre because we’d planned to visit MoPop, aka the Museum of Pop Culture (and once known as Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.) We wanted to visit it partly because the building was designed by Frank Gehry and partly because of Seattle’s contribution to pop culture (as mentioned in our Day 2 post). 

However, we realised we really don’t speak a lot of pop culture. The museum’s exhibits include:

• the Seattle Seahawks (the local football team)
• Jimi Hendrix
• David Bowie
• the history of the guitar
• Star Trek
• Sci Fi, Fantasy, Horror movies/TV shows
• Indie (I think) computer games.

There was also a special exhibition for Jim Henson, which cost an additional amount and which we didn’t opt for. In retrospect, though, it may have offered us more than some of the other exhibits!

The outside of the building is astonishing – and suitably modern for a pop culture museum. However, we didn’t find navigating our way around the exhibits inside particularly easy or intuitive. Nonetheless, we did enjoy aspects of it, and those aspects made our visit worthwhile. For example, the Hendrix Abroad exhibit was nicely done, and I particularly enjoyed seeing examples of his lyrics-drafting on things like hotel notepads. Many of the objects in the popular music exhibits (including the guitar display) came from the museum’s founder, Paul Allen. (He started up Microsoft with Bill Gates, and is one of Seattle’s wealthiest men. Like Gates, he’s a great philanthropist and benefactor).

Probably the exhibit we found most interesting – and it was one of the most extensive – was Star Trek. We learnt something new, which Trekkies would know. It’s that Lucille Ball was the person who gave Star Trek the support it needed in its creation and pilot stage. Without her, it may not have continued beyond its initial trial. I was also interested to learn more about its creator Gene Roddenberry and the social justice ideas underpinning his concept for the show.  Interesting stuff.

Tapas in Seattle

For dinner, we just went up the road to the third in a row of interesting looking bars-cum-eateries in our neighbourhood. Our first night here we went to McMenamins Six Arms, then two nights ago it was Rumba, so tonight we tried Tango. It’s a Spanish tapas style place, and we had a tasty meal of dishes including manchego, jamon, ceviche, and the famous Torte di Santiago almond cake. It was a lovely, relaxing way to end the day.

Today’s trivia

We’ve decided to introduce a little regular section – bits of trivia – in this trip’s travel blog, though who knows if we’ll keep it up. Today’s is:

Seattle has the second largest houseboat community in the world. (We wonder where the largest is?)

Today’s images

Still

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Moving

The Boeing factory

 

How did we do THIS without our cameras?