Click on a photo to enlarge it.
Unbelievable but true! Canada to Mexico in 20 days! Why?? Because our plan is to get to Belize by the 1st of December and spend 4 to 5
months travelling through Central America, all the way down to Panama and back.
There wasn't going to be much time because we had arranged to meet up with our friends Helmut and Agnes in Arizona at the end of
October and then travel with them through Central America.
We also had a very long To Do list that had to be completed whilst we were in America and 2,000 miles to drive!!
But first we wanted to see the Cascades in Northern Washington and drive the Cascades loop. We have had this area on our list for some
time but never got here at the right time of year. Fortunately the weather for mid October was still good enough for us to be able to
drive over the two high passes along the loop.
We stopped at a Ranger Station in Winthrop to get maps and info and promptly drove the wrong way out of the town! We did 24 miles extra
and by the time we got back to Winthrop it was already 5pm. So we ended up spending our first night on the top of Washington Pass
(5,477 feet) and had to put our heater on. It was freezing!
It was only 6 degrees when we got up the next morning and we did a few short trails and stopped at some overlooks. We really enjoyed
the short walk at Ladder Creek Falls and gardens.
We had a great time on the Boeing tour at their plant in Mulkiteo (north of Seattle) - $18 and the tour lasted almost two hours. The
buildings are huge. We walked through a tunnel and then went up to viewing galleries to see where they assemble 747s and 787s.
The plant is the biggest building by volume in the world. It can fit all of Disneyland, Los Angeles inside, or 12 Empire State
Buildings, or 5 Pyramids of Giza. There are 19,000 employees but the scale of the buildings means that you can hardly see anyone
around and those you can, look like midgets!
The 747s take 4 months to build and most of the parts are made in Seattle. It costs $330 million per jet plus $26 million for the
engines which are made by Rolls Royce or GE.
Building an air plane in fast motion
The parts for the new 787 Dream Liners are all made elsewhere (US, Japan, Italy and UK) and are shipped here for assembly - it takes
only 3 days to put a 787 together!
The Dream Liners have only just come out and the first were delivered only 2 weeks before our tour to the Japanese. The 787 is made
from polymers and composites so it is much lighter, uses less fuel and is stronger. There are only half the number of rivets and
screws which means 3 million less parts!
Also, because there is no metal that can rust, they can raise the humidity inside to 35% instead of only 10% in other air planes.
(That's why you should always drink fluids when flying - to stop the rust!!)
The cabin pressure in the new 787s can be raised so it feels as if you are at 6,000 ft above sea level instead of 8,000 ft in other
air planes. It won't be so painful for babies whose ear canals are not yet developed enough (less screaming kids!) and the rest of
us won't notice that much difference any more.
One other interesting fact is that they use positive and negative charges in the painting process - one for the body of the planes
and the other for the paint - so that the paint is like a magnet sticking to the outside of the plane and it doesn't get blasted off
during the flight!
A very good tour and well worth the money.
Then we continued on the southern part of the Cascade loop where we stopped at Deception Falls and the Iron Goat Interpretive Site.
We went over Stephens Pass (4,060 ft) and then stopped at Leavenworth which is town with Swiss style buildings and a Bavarian attitude
towards food - i.e. sausages and sauerkraut.
Heading south again we stopped at the John Day National Monument, Painted Hills section in Oregon where we did a few trails to see the
colourful hills formed millions of years ago and, from a distance, look as if they are covered in velvet.
Then it was a long drive down to California to get our smog test done. Winnie passed with flying colours because we had new valves put
in. Then we drove over to Arizona and met Helmut and Agnes in Parker Dam.
