Canada Hols - Seattle Day 3 - Pioneer Square & Boeing Factory

Being Sunday, and having had a latish night on Saturday night, we had a late start to the day. We decided to walk back to Pioneer Square, which, conversely, is a triangular park marking Seattle's first permanent settlement. In this area are very interesting buildings, and an ornate cast iron pergola, a totem pole, the Smith Tower (in 1914 the tallest building in the world outside Manhattan), the original “Skid Row”, Waterfall Garden Park, Occidental Square (which we didn't venture into, due to the dozens of homeless people 'living' there), and the Klondike Museum (all about the Alaskan Gold Rush – it sure was harsh for the people who were lured up there). There was a really fascinating store Seattle Gems (I think) which had fabulous rocks. On the way back we were attracted by a crowd, clapping and music outside the Seattle Art Gallery and stopped to watch a couple of acts in Honk-Fest. In the afternoon we got on a tour to the Boeing Factory and 'History of Flight Museum'. You can see what it would be like if we could afford our own plane. :-) We couldn't take any photos or film in the factory, but videos are viewable on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/boeing. This factory is the largest building in the world by volume. When it was first constructed it created its own weather system and clouds would form inside and it would rain! They had to put in fans to force the air to circulate down. Once again we had great weather, although showers were forecast there were only a few spits during the day and I only got the umbrella out once while walking home (and really didn't need it).