The Museum of Flight

It's amazing we have NEVER been to The Museum of Flight here in Seattle.  Josiah knew Michael would love it and suggested it, as did several others. We went today - Josiah took his first weekday off since mid-August and joined us. Actually, the boys spent the night with him and so they all met us there. On the way we discovered the joy of the TOLL LANE in Seattle. We expected a spot to PAY (as we did in Japan) but Josiah says they took a photo of our license plate and will mail us a bill....

While at the museum, we participated in a one hour tour, saw every exhibit, crossed the street and saw the Space Center and toured through all the static displays.  This is a great museum. It was exhausting. We'd been warned it would take a full day. It did.  We didn't absorb as much info as we would have liked to and are sure to go back. Tuesday's are "Two for One Tuesdays" - a good day to visit. Thursday they stay open late and 5 - 9 p.m. is free. BUT we bought a MEMBERSHIP which will allow two adults and all our kids under 18 in for FREE for a year.  The membership was a steal for us - it is only $14 more for the year than it would be for our family of 5 to go once. We don't plan on staying in Seattle all year. We've been looking for a museum which participates in  the Association of Science-Technology Centers  (ASTC) passport program, so we could buy a reciprocal membership. We'll not only be able to visit The Museum of Flight when we visit Josiah, but we'll be able to in to more than 290 other museums around America (and a few in Canada). The discount may vary per museum but we've heard favorable reports from other families participating in the program.

This was a great day. We had studied the Wright Brothers and the advent of the flight age a couple of weeks ago. It was fun for the kids to see the full-sized models up close. We highly recommend this stop when in Seattle. Below are some photos - I'm sure Michael will label some of the planes at a later date.

Lunar Module

Our tour group

Overwhelmed with the choices? LOL

Michael shares a bit more insight about the SR71

Pilots of SR71 sign this - fun to see the name of the pilot Michael has talked with

I think, yes.

Who knew? It's already been done.

Every day we seem to have a little reminder of Japan. Today it was in the middle of the Museum of Flight - a write up about Clyde P (Michael can finish his name) and Miss Veedol. The flight from Misawa, Japan to Wenatchee, WA.

Shuttle Simulator - we crashed it over and over

Stacia LOVED the hands on exhibits

These two had fun with the bottle rockets

The first jet-powered Air Force One - used by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.

Presidential toilet - just had to add this to my toilet museum and Japanese toilet collection

  

Yep - we'd be great visiting the White House. LOL

The Concorde - England to NYC in 2 hours and 52 minutes

Boeing 787 Dreamliner (inside pictures don't do it justice)

Family Fishing Trip

Stacia has wanted to go fishing for a long time. Lake Pleasant RV Park  is a wild life sanctuary. The park is built around a lake, which happens to be filled with large-mouth bass.  It is free to fish as it's all catch and release.

Josiah came over after he got off work. I worked on dinner and they all headed across to the lake.  They didn't catch anything - but they saw photos of a catch by a boy just an hour earlier. We'll be trying again, I'm sure.

They returned as dinner was ready to come out of the oven.   We sent Josiah home with two brothers and the leftovers. We'll meet up tomorrow in town for another full day.

Chittenden (Ballard) Locks

Chittenden Locks (Ballard Locks)  were built in 1917 as a passage way for commercial and recreational ships between the salt water of Puget Sound and the fresh water of Lake Washington and Lake Union.  When I heard about the locks, I knew we had to visit. We studied the building of the Panama Canal last week.

Upstairs, in the visitor cente, are several hands-on exhibits of both the locks and the life cycle of Salmons.

Moving ships through locks - great exhibit

Guided walking tours are available....as well as a self-guided tour of the Carl English Botanical Gardens. We watched a 12 minute video which reviewed the concepts of Locks and gave us the historical background of this specific site.

Next, we headed out to see real boats/ships navigate the Locks. It was a beautiful, sunny, fall day  - perfect for watching ships.

 

Another feature of the Ballard Locks is a FISH LADDER.  We'd heard it wasn't the right time to see many salmon - but we saw several.  We enjoyed the underwater viewing section.

 

 

 

This display, illustrating the first 99 days of the life of a salmon, was fascinating.

 

We found FALL!

 

 

It was achingly bittersweet when we intersected a tour group of Japanese school girls from Tokyo. (I asked).  Hearing the language, seeing the tour guides, the uniforms and the giggly girls....Stacia asked if I thought we'd ever get back to Japan. I cried. Our hearts are in Japan - God knows the specifics of the future. "Let go my soul and rest in Him, the waves and the wind still know His name."

We finished off the trip by stopping at the historic,  90 year old  Lockspot Cafe.  We highly recommend the fish and chips - and they have a garden burger too.

This was a great day of Road Schooling. It cemented the information we'd studied last week. I love it when it things work like this.  The Ballard Locks, Salmon Ladder and Botanical Gardens are all FREE.