Our first stop on Friday was the Boeing Factory. Sadly I have no pictures of our tour there as cameras and any electronic devices were not allowed on the tour. If you know my husband, you know that he is a huge airplane fan. He has vast stores of knowledge secured away in his brain. There are times when it is no fun to watch movies with him when he continually points out the unrealistic nature of an airplane scene. We drove a short ways to Everett for our scheduled time and boarded the bus to the factory. I have to say the new dream liner Boeing has developed should be quite cool. If you would like to order one, it was only a cool $187 million and you should plan on a 2019 delivery date. The tour lasted 90 minutes and then we headed off to the ferry in Edmunds.
The problem with kids is that you have to keep feeding them. As we were in line for the ferry, Chris hopped out to find something quick to purchase to take with us. Cars began to start up all around us and he still wasn't back. All of a sudden I saw him on the sidewalk running past the van and then into the rows of cars. He was very quickly scanning vehicles looking for us. Finally finding us, he hopped in the van, deposited pizza slices on my lap (in a box), and we proceeded to drive on to the ferry--a first-time experience for the girls in this family. Heck, Seattle was a first-time experience for us girls too!
We parked the van on the ferry and exited to the upper deck where we had a quick lunch and let the older two girls explore the boat. The sun was beginning to peek through the clouds.
We made haste across the Puget Sound and landed in Kingston, WA. Ah, the drive was beautiful. My only lament? It would be a couple of weeks before the trees were in their full Fall glory of colors. It would be a fabulous sight to see. I loved the winding, tree-lined roads with branches creating a canopy as we drove by. We stopped at a quaint little village called Port Gamble. I thought it was hilarious to see what caught my daughters' attention. As Chris and I meandered through a little book shop, Misha and Amy stayed outside to create a pile a leaves, "We never get leaves like this at our house."
From Port Gamble we continued on to our next destination of Port Townsend where we would take another ferry to Whidbey Island. Kristen chose to put on a crabby face. It took a lot of coaxing to work the crabbies out of her. I think searching for seashells did the trick though.
The Port Townsend ferry dropped us off on Whidbey Island. One of the highlights on Whidbey Island was Fort Casey and the lighthouse at Admiralty Head.
We had thought to stop in Oak Harbor for dinner, but were highly unimpressed and kept driving on to Anacortes. It is a good thing otherwise we might have passed over Deception Pass in the dark. There is an amazing bridge that connects Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island. We came upon it and at the first stop was a State Park that collected a $10 fee to stop. We figured they meant business since a police car was sitting in the lot. We drove a little further to the other side of the bridge where there was a small parking area--no charge. The girls were reluctant to get out of the car but finally joined us. They just don't have the appreciation for fine scenery. I took pictures and then Chris found stairs that took you under the bridge to the other side. Amazing.
We ended up at Randy's Pier 61 for dinner. The girls were excited for fish and chips, salmon and halibut. Each has different tastes, but they do like one kind of fish or another. The meal was rather spendy, but quite tasty. We would be returning to Anacortes on Saturday morning for our whale watching tour, but for the night we stayed in Burlington about 30 minutes away. Such a treat not to have to drive all the way back to Seattle and then turn around and come right back in the morning. It seemed late because the sun was already down, but we arrived in Burlington around 7:45. Amy needed some good tennis shoes and we lucked out to pass a small outlet mall with a Nike outlet store--and we scored a great deal thanks to Kyle's Nike family discount.
