Seattle - Washington State - page 116

Seattle Noir
If your tastes run to the macabre, you might be interested in the Private Eye
on Seattle tours ( & 206/365-3739; www.privateeyetours.com). These
somewhat bizarre van tours are led by a private eye named Jake who shares
stories of interesting and unusual cases from the Emerald City. Tours are $22
per person. To balance things out, there's also a tour of some of Seattle's
most distinctive churches ($25 per person) and a tour of some of the city's
haunted locales ($25 per person).
If you'd rather pretend you're back in the days of The English Patient, you can
go up in a vintage biplane with Olde Thyme Aviation ( & 206/730-1412;
www.oldethymeaviation.com), which operates from Boeing Field. Flights are
offered on sunny weekends. A 20-minute flight along the Seattle waterfront to
the Space Needle costs $115 for two people; other flights range in price from
$149 to $449 for two people.
A RAILWAY EXCURSION
If you're a fan of riding the rails, consider the Spirit of Washington Dinner
Train, 625 S. Fourth St., Renton ( & 800/876-7245 or 425/227-RAIL; www.
spiritofwashingtondinnertrain.com). Running from Renton, at the south end of
Lake Washington, to the Columbia Winery near Woodinville, at the north end
of Lake Washington, this train rolls past views of the lake and Mount Rainier.
Along the way, you're fed a filling lunch or dinner. At the turnaround point, you
get to tour a winery and taste some wines. Dinner tours range from $60 to $75;
lunch tours range from $50 to $65. The higher prices are for seatings in the
dome car, which definitely offers finer views.
THE BOEING TOUR
Until Bill Gates and Microsoft came to town, Boeing was the largest employer
(by far) in the Seattle area. Although the company moved its corporate head-
quarters out of Seattle a few years ago, Boeing is still a major presence in the city,
and it still has something that Microsoft can never claim: the single largest build-
ing, by volume, in the world. This building, the company's Everett assembly
plant, could easily hold 911 basketball courts, 74 football fields, 2,142 average-
size homes, or all of Disneyland (with room left over for covered parking). Tours
of the building let you see just how they put together the huge passenger jets that
travelers take for granted.
The tours are quite fascinating and well worth the time it takes to get here
from downtown Seattle. Guided 1-hour tours of the facility are held Monday
through Friday throughout the year. The schedule varies with the time of year,
so call ahead for details and directions to the plant. Tours cost $5 for adults and
$3 for seniors and children under 16 who meet the height requirement (mini-
mum of 50 in. tall). Tickets for same-day use are sold on a first-come, first-
served basis beginning at 8am (8:30am Oct-May); in summer, tickets for any
given day's tours usually sell out by noon. To check availability of same-day tick-
ets, call the Everett Tour Center, Wash. 526, Everett, WA ( & 425/342-8500;
www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/tours), between 8:30am and 2pm.
It is also possible to make reservations 24 hours or more in advance by calling
& 800/464-1476 or 206/544-1264 between 9 and 11am or noon and 3pm