Our Travel Blog

NOTE:

Currently WiFi is down to 2G speed, that’s about as fast as the original dial up modem speed of 200 years ago! Assuming this text gets posted, I’ll inset some pictures at a later date

Another damp start to the day, remind me to stay clear of coastal regions close to mountains in the future! After breakfast we headed about 25 miles north to the city of Everett, Washington. This is the home of the Boeing aircraft factory. We found out sometime back that the company provides tours of the factory, and this is something we both wanted to do, it’s also the reason we are staying where we are. From a logistics viewpoint it was the best place to stay.

We arrived at the plant in good time for the 11:00 tour, the company runs these 90 minute tours every 30 minutes from 9AM to 5PM 7 days a week, and although it is not peak season there were plenty of takers. Unfortunately, Boeing are very strictly with respect to photography, in fact nothing can be carried on the tour, cameras, cell phones, wallets purses……. nothing. At least they provide free storage lockers at the start of the tour.

The factory makes the Boeing 747, 767, 777, 787 in an immense facility. The B747 takes 4 months to build, it is built from scratch at the plant. The newest, the B787 takes 3 days to assemble. Parts for it are manufactured around the world, and shipped to Everett to be put together, bit like a big Airfix kit!

The facility operates 24/7 Monday – Fridays, with the weekends used for catch up if the schedule slips; 44000 people are employed on three shifts.

The building is the largest in the world enclosing 13,385,378 m³ (472,370,319 cu ft) and covering 399,480 m² (98.3 acres).

It is like a small city, requiring its own fire department, security force, fully equipped medical clinic, electrical substations and water treatment plant. The building is so large that when the factory was first built, clouds actually formed near the ceiling. The weather cleared when an air-circulation system was installed. There is no heating nor air conditioning in the building, the heat of 1 million light bulbs, plus machinery and human heat warm the place up in the winter. In the summer they open up the huge hangar doors to let the wind blow through to cool it. It costs $65,000 per day in electricity to light those 1 million bulbs! Employees use 1,300 tricycles to get around the building more efficiently than walking! There are also 2.33 miles or 3.7 kilometers of pedestrian tunnels running below the factory. The tunnels are also used for operating the utilities and comes in handy during winter when getting around in the cold and snow can be a challenge. As a final bit of trivia, the mural on the six factory doors is the largest digital graphics in the world.

At the end of the tour we headed back to the tour centre to pick up our cameras so we could take some shots from the viewing deck on the roof.

One of the aircraft we were lucky to see (there are only 4 in the world) was the Dreamlifter, a specially modified Boeing 747 used for carrying fuselage parts, wings and other structures from around the world.

There was a whole “parking lot” full of aircraft waiting for test flights.

The three aircraft below had just been completed, and were being fueled up for the first time prior to an engine run.

The aircraft below is an interesting one for us, it is a Boeing 787 of Hainan (Chinese) Airlines, the same aircraft type and company that we will be flying to China with later this year, who knows, it could even be on that aircraft.

We also went around a small museum area where I got the chance to “fly” a Boeing 727

On our way back to the car we spotted an MGB-GT (1970’s British sports car) in the parking lot. It was registered in Victoria, NOT B.C. but Australia, and was being driven on a round the world tour!

After lunch we headed slowly back to the dump campground, stopping off at Hobby Lobby (a large crafts and hobby store) as well as finding the obligatory geo-cache.

Back at the trailer I did some prep work for an early (06:30) departure tomorrow. The truck is hooked up and ready to go with no sign of leaking brake fluid this time!

Well, I have cooled down a little from yesterdays rant, in fairness the camping area of the camp ground is still a dump, but there is a nice indoor pool, hot tub and sauna. There is also a list of 48 rules that each camper must abide by. Such gems as:

Any cracked windows in RV’s must be replaced intermediately, cardboard is NOT to be used as a repair method.

No rust on any vehicles

NO repairs to vehicles to be carried out on site

Any fluid leaks must be repaired immediately ( how does that fit in with the one above?)

And probably my favourite, if any of these rule are not enforced by management, this lack of enforcement is not to be construed as a waiver of any rule.

Still can’t wait to leave.

The rain continued on the wet coast (just like the UK I remember!!), so what to do …… shopping. For a change I wanted to go shopping, as well as Lyn, so I dropped her off at JoAnn fabrics and I headed out to Home Depot for a couple of items, and then across to Best Buy. I had decided it was time to buy a new camera. Although the current one takes good photos, it has one major and annoying flaw, the screen is not bright enough to see what is in view, in bright sunlight it is often a case of point, shoot and hope.

The new camera is no bigger than the old one, it will still easily fit in a pocket, but it has greater resolution (18.2MP), greater zoom (30x optical. 60x digital) WiFi connectivity to download pictures but best of all a digital viewfinder! In addition there are about 4000 other bells and whistles on it that I have yet to discover!

Well my shopping was a success, Lyn’s, not so much.

We headed of to WalMart for some other stuff (including an air freshener for the wash room (see yesterdays blog!), then back for lunch.

After lunch Lyn headed over to the laundry for the weekly wash, this place got another black mark; the cost of a load in the machine was shown as $1.50, however after putting in $1.50 the machine demanded another .25c before it would do anything, this place definitely nickel, dimes and quarters you.

While Lyn was enjoying herself I forced myself to go shopping once more. There is an electronics store in the States called Fry’s. I was a very regular customer of theirs when I used to travel to LA every couple of weeks. Not only does it sell computers and other gizmos, it sells lots of electronic components for hobbyists. After about 30 minutes I had to leave, there was so much to buy, but no justifiable reason to buy it!

The Sunday traffic around here was about as bad as the Saturday traffic, I dread to think what the weekday traffic will be like. Tomorrow we head about 30 miles north for our sole reason of stopping in the area. Stay tuned.

Woke up to clear blue skies and sunshine. The temperature here on the coast is definitely cooler than inland. Inland has been forecast to climb to the mid 80’s, but here the Ocean is keeping the temperature in the mid 50’s. Just after breakfast we lost all power, I thought at first maybe were having electric problems again after last weeks issues. This time it was due to a downed hydro pole. The estimated time to restore power was 2 hours, so with no power and no internet, we decided to head out earlier than planned.

About 5 miles south of the campground we ran into our old friends, mist fog and low cloud. We were heading about 50 miles south to see some of the coastline, however there wouldn’t be too much to see in these conditions.

We first stopped at Tillamook and went into the visitors centre to get some local maps. Much to my amazement they had State road maps for most of the States we would be driving through so I grabbed a bunch.

One of the big touristy things in the surrounding area is the “Quilting Trail”, which features Barn Quilts.

Over time more and more of these quilts have appeared, and there are now 101 of them along the Highway 101 corridor.

There are also a number of geocaches which use some of these quilts in their clues.

Where there are quilts, even painted ones, there is bound to be fabric. This time it wasn’t a fabric store as such, it was a textile centre. Somehow, Lyn managed to go in empty handed, and come out not empty handed!

The centre had a quilt themed mural painted on on of the buildings.

While driving around the quilt trail we found another cache that was located in a small gardens area maintained by the areas Master Gardeners. Again the quilt theme was present.

From here we headed out for coastal route called the three capes, unfortunately it was quite disappointing as the route itself was either quite a way inland, or the ocean views were hidden by trees. The hazy weather didn’t help either.

Heading back to the camp ground we passed Haystack Rock.

This is the 3rd highest inter tidal ( it can be reached by land at low tide, but only by sea at high tide) structure in the world at 235ft high.

Just up the road was the town of Cannon Beach, a very touristy area, even on Friday in early May!

Here we saw something we never expected to see here!

This is a British vehicle from the 1950’s, a Morris Minor van in pristine condition.

A little disappointing as yesterdays sunshine wasn’t with us when we woke up. After breakfast though the clouds began to clear, and the sun broke through. It was time to hit the food store to replenish the supplies so we headed into the local town, Seaside.

We stopped to fill up with diesel, almost forgot that the attendant has to do the pumping!

Next stop was the food store, followed by a drive through the town to see what it offered. Not too much unfortunately.

After lunch we headed back into town to take a stroll along the promenade, and find a couple of geocaches. The promenade is set back from the ocean by a few hundred feet and lined with holiday homes.

Although it doesn’t show too clearly, the “birds” above are actually carvings at the top of the picket fence. Seems to be some pride of ownership in the area.

Over some small dunes and onto the beach

We continued walking along the beach for a while (good exercise) then reached the far enf of the promenade, which we walked along back to the truck.

Lyn …… after the 3 mile walk!!!

The trailer was still there this morning!! After breakfast we headed out to continue our trip to Seaside Oregon. The scenery continued to be stunning, but the roads only allowed us to average 45 MPH, not the 55 I had planned on. Not only were there many tight turns and hills, there were many towns with 25 MPH speed limits.

I am glad that we finished up splitting the trip, as it would have been close to 10 hours in a single go.

We only got a couple of shots in for the blog.

We stopped for lunch in a rest area, and made up a snack in the trailer. When we went back to the truck, the engine started……. then stopped. It would not start again. Yesterday it wouldn’t stop, to day it wouldn’t start!!

Earlier in the day there was a message on the instruments that said to change the fuel filter. I didn’t think the beast would react that quickly, but it got me thinking. Obvious diagnosis was fuel starvation. We had plenty of fuel, but was it being totally blocked by the filter? Remembering back to when I last changed the filter, one of the steps was to fill the filter with diesel using a priming pump on the filter housing. I went out and primed, came back and the engine started …… then stopped. Re-primed the filter with the same result. One more time and bingo, we were up and running! All I can think of was that an air / vapour lock occurred in the fuel feed. The truck ran fine for the rest of the day. Just to be sure I went into town and got a new filter. Luckily changing a fuel filter on the truck requires no tools.

The previously clean trailer was now far from clean at the front, why do bugs have to make such a mess when they fly into the front of the trailer?

After the painfully slow set up of the satellite dish at the last site, this time was ridiculously easy, in fact I had it set up before Lyn could get in position to read off the strength from the TV screen!!

Woke up to another sunny morning, seemed strange not to have the truck in front of us!!

This morning was destined to pass very slowly… I decided I don’t do so well if I am not in control of events!

After breakfast we started some more cleaning and packing in the hope that the truck would be ready to move out in the afternoon.

Around noon I broke down and phoned the mechanic, he assured me all was going well and the truck should be fixed between 2 and 3 PM.

After lunch I was about to phone again as we had to make the decision whether to stay another night at the RV Park, or head north. Bang on 2 o’clock the phone rang, the truck was ready. The owner came and picked me up (he also dropped me back at the trailer yesterday), the garage was about 4 miles away with no public transport.

We were back at the trailer by 2:20, a few hundred bucks the poorer, but much better off than if anything had gone wrong while we were on the move!! We had decided we would complete half the journey to the next site to day and stay at a motel tonight. I had just received some hotel vouchers yesterday, so the cost was about the same as an RV site, but involved less effort.

After a thorough checking of the brakes we headed north. Part of the route we had covered a couple of days ago, but then we were in uncharted territory. When we crossed the Oregon border the road veered closer to the Ocean. The views were great, much as we had both expected. The pictures below don’t do it justice as I just stuck the camera out the window and clicked away. The windscreen was too bug splattered for Lyn to take any shots!

One thing we have already learnt about Oregon; you are not allowed to pump your own gas!!

We finished up at the motel around 7:20, wasn’t too pleased as they advertised truck and RV parking, but there was no suitable parking on site. We finished up leaving the rig on the street, but I think it will be OK.

Having got everything sorted we headed out to the restaurant next door, Lyn seems happy enough!!

Finally, on what was planned to be our last day the sun decided to grace us with its presence! After breakfast we headed out to Eureka to visit a heritage woodworking factory.

This place, Blue Ox, specialises in custom woodwork for heritage buildings, and does a lot of its work in redwood. The redwoods are slowly disappearing, and only about 4% of the remaining trees are “old growth” i.e. over one thousand years old. In the last 40 years or so strict rules have been put in place for the harvesting of redwoods. There is no more felling of old growth trees. If an old  growth redwood falls naturally, large companies (more than 30 employees) are not allowed to use that tree, they must offer it for sale to a smaller company. Evidently redwood is THE wood to use. It is water proof, bug proof, warp proof and just about anything else proof!

The other thing about Blue Ox is that they use older “man powered” machines for a lot of their work.

Hand Powered Table Saw

Treadle Powered Lathe

The blue machine in the front is for making the pointy end of picket fences, a couple of which can be seen on the table saw a couple of pictures up.

Long Hand Saw Hanging From Ceiling

1936 Powered Scroll Saw

Sit on Pedal Powered Scroll Saw

Treadle Powered Scroll Saw

A Very Large Lathe!

Blue Ox is the last place in the world to manufacture redwood eaves trough.

Blue Ox also has a print shop

And a Fabric Shop

Outside were a number of other areas, there is also an old trolley bus which is constructed mostly of wood, Blue Ox has been restoring it.

There was also a ceramics area, with its own earth kiln (slightly larger than yours Marie!)

The place was amazing, and they are continuing to expand into a heritage village which will also provide training for students in the various arts.

Next it was off to Eureka to walk around, Geo-cache and find some murals!

Above is the front of the building that hosts the mural in the picture before it.

The  building above, The Eagle Tavern, is  in Old Town Eureka and has recently had its exterior refurbished by Blue Ox.

We had a pleasant lunch at a local bagel restaurant, then headed back to the RV park to start packing up for tomorrows move.

As we would be leaving around 7 AM we decided to pack away as much stuff as possible, both to make a quick get away and to avoid disturbing the neighbours. After hitching up the trailer to the truck I saw an ominous puddle of fluid under the drivers side of the truck. It turned out to be brake fluid.

I managed to track down a mechanic a couple of miles away who would take a look at the problem so I drove SLOWLY to the repair shop.  The brakes were “different” but there was still plenty of stopping power in them. Initial diagnosis was that the Ottawa salt had done a number on the brake lines and caused one to rust through and leak!  It was decided that the four brake lines in the cluster should be replaced, as it is quite likely the others could go at any time. The mechanic is confident that he can have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon. If we didn’t spot this now, then we would have had a brake failure out on the windy, hilly freeway with the trailer behind us. not a pleasant thought.

Luckily we can remain here another night if we need to, but I am looking at leaving here tomorrow afternoon, and drive about half way to our next site and stop at a motel. This will have the added benefit of driving two 4 hours stints rather than one 8 hour one.

Surprise, another dull and foggy start to the day.

In celebration of Mothers day we had a relaxing morning (such a rarity), Lyn did some of her hobby stuff and I finally got around to tidying up all the electronics mess in “my corner” of the trailer.

After lunch we headed south, this time we took the seaward route that goes over a spit of land and a couple of bridges to get down to Eureaka. A little more scenic than using the freeway. Our first stop was a series of bluffs overlooking the Pacific. We were expecting something a little higher, but we got a view of the beach from above. The sand around here is quite fine, but it is grey rather than golden in colour.

Gets Blowy up Here!

Next we headed further south to the village of Ferndale which is known as a Victorian Village. Of course being a village it was full of antiques stores. Lyn managed to find something to buy!! The buildings were all in pretty good condition, and made for a scenic village.

Following on from there we headed inland to the village of Fortuna for a walk along the river. The walkway was along a disused rail bed which made for fairly easy walking.

All in we managed about 2.5 miles of walking. We didn’t find any geo-caches today; mainly because I forgot the GPS!!

Its hard to believe we picked up the trailer a week ago, we seem to have settled back into the routine quite easily. Sure beats working for a living!!

Another cloudy / foggy northern California day. Seems this is the norm for this area at this time of year. We decided given the weather it would be “an at home day”

After breakfast I went outside and finished off washing down the trailer and truck, both look a lot better now; if only I could get Lyn to volunteer to wax them (don’t tell her I said that!).

Once that was done I went back to work on an issue we are having with part of our internet equipment. We have a small out door unit that sits on a mast above the trailer that receives and transmits our WiFi signal. Because it is outside it receives a stronger signal, and also transmits a stronger one, it doesn’t necessarily speed up the internet per se, but it does mean we have a better chance of getting a signal, and therefore a better service. I had managed to get the software in the unit working over the last couple of days so I put it back outside. After I had finished washing the trailer, it no longer worked. All I can think of was that water somehow affected the waterproof unit. Back to the drawing board!

We also lost power this morning, which was fixed by resetting the breaker on the supply box, none of out trailer breakers blew. This happened twice more later in the day, but unfortunately the office is now closed so there isn’t too much I can do about it.

After lunch we headed out of the park for a walk around the local area, there were also a couple of caches close by. At the road leading to one of the caches was a large sign proclaiming that a special event was taking place.

The special event was a craft sale!! Made someone happy. It was being held at a local Indian (First Nations) health centre / meeting place.

Dugout Canoe on Display

We carried on with the walk and found the two caches we were looking for. There is also a lot of flowers and bushes in bloom down here, some we recognised, some we didn’t. For the following pictures with ??? under them please identify!!!

Fuchsia

Rhododendron Tree

Rhododendron Bush

Foxglove

????

???

We managed a 2 mile walk, which should help burn off some excess calories! When we got back to the park we found the internet had died!! It finally made a re-appearance a few hours later.

Hopefully tomorrow brings better weather and more well behave electrons.