Sunny Seattle Trip - Day 2 - Boeing & Snoqualmie Falls,

Monday morning (Labor Day) we woke up bright and early, stopped at Starbucks for coffee (not the original one, this time, but a nice new one half a block from our hotel) and headed north to the town of Everett, Washington.

Everett is where Boeing assembles their fleet of large planes that go overseas including the 747, 767, 777, and the new Dream Liner and where we would be taking the Boeing Future of Flight Factory Tour. The drive north from Seattle was amazing. It reminded me of driving around Tahoe while on vacation. I couldn't imagine having such a pretty commute to work everyday!

Upon arrival at Boeing, we awed at the parking lot of planes and landing strip that the company uses for its test flights.

Plane Parking Lot and Landing Strip - (ugh..more black spots!)

We then went into the visitor center where we watched a short movie about the history of flight and Boeing' s huge impact on the industry.  After the movie, we loaded onto buses that would take us to the manufacturing floor. Let me tell you...the building where Boeing assembles these planes is HUGE. In fact it is the LARGEST building in the world! Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures while on the tour (they were SUPER strict about leaving all personal items in the car).

We did see numerous planes that were in the process of being assembled and the guide explained Boeing's revolutionary way of slowly moving the plane up through different stations creating a makeshift assembly line. The Hubs and I were really interested in how the planes were built since we are both materials engineers. We were especially interested in the new 787 Dream Liner which is an all composite (instead of aluminum) plane that will be the most fuel efficient plane available. The Hubs and I both enjoyed the tour and said we would definitely like to take it again, except next time we'd take it on a weekday when people were actually working!

Here's a few images of what we saw on the tour from the Boeing website and "If its not Boeing, I'm not going!":

Largest Building in the World! ~ Image Source: Boeing

Image Source: Boeing

After the tour, The Hubs and I sat in the car to decide what to do next. The remainder of the day was unplanned so we went to our list of possible things to do. The first thing that caught my eye was a cruise on Elliott Bay. I went to the website on my handy dandy Smartphone (SO glad I got one of those!) and discovered that the VERY LAST sunset cruise of the season was taking place that evening. The Hubs is ALWAYS a sucker for a good sunset, so we decided to purchase tickets. Awesome! Evening activity planned...check!

We still had a few hours to kill before we had to get in line to board our cruise, so we went on a recommendation from a friend of my mom's to head east to see Snolquamie Falls. It was great because this was a FREE activity where we could just relax, walk around, and enjoy the beauty of the Falls. This would definitely be a great place to take a family for a picnic!

After enjoying a lunch of a Haagan Daas ice cream bar (for me) and a Butterfinger bar (for The Hubs) we headed back downtown to get ready for our next activity.

In our next installment of Sunny Seattle, I'll show you the beautiful pictures we took from our FAVORITE part of our Seattle trip!

**Need to catch up on our trip to Sunny Seattle?**

Sunny Seattle - Day 1 - Pioneer Square