On Friday Peter and I went on a field trip. In a school bus!

Why? We had the pleasure of participating in the 2nd event presented by Portland’s Dill Pickle Club: The “How Are Things Made?” Tour.

This was an event that is right up our alleys. We love watching shows like How It’s Made. In St. Louis Peter and I lived by the Anheuser Busch brewery so I had many opportunities to go on its factory tour and always found it interesting. Pretty much any opportunity I have to see behind-the-scenes production of any product, event, job, etc I will jump on. It gives you insight and respect for how something we often take for granted comes together.

On our tour we visited 3 places:

We also enjoyed a brief conversation/lecture from Dr. Randall Bluffstone, Chair of Economics Dept. over at Portland State University.

So I will get to the tours in a moment but I just have to say that being in a big yellow cheese wagon is exactly the same as it was growing up, only I have gotten bigger and the seats haven’t. But it was fun nostalgia.

Intel

The Intel tour in Hillsboro, OR was very sterile. Which I guess is fitting when I think about it. The tour was like a slick slice of a science museum experience, and we learned about what goes into making the processor chips and how much they have progressed over the years. It was really fascinating. But we didn’t get to see any actual production. I think the building the tour was at was nothing but office drones anyway. It would have been nice to at least see a video of a chip being made.

There was a Q&A portion of the tour. Our group was very interested in things like environmental impacts and foreign relations. I asked a question about how many chips Intel makes and the speaker did not know the answer.

One of my favorite parts of this tour was the oversized computer with Windows 3.1 era boxes and a throwback Intel commercial shot on it.

Pendleton Woolen Mills

So this was the best tour of the day, but no photos were allowed. This place is in Washougal, Washingon, right across the river from Portland. Before the tour we were in the attached store with clothing and blankets and Peter and I were like “this stuff is lame.” After the tour we wanted to buy something because we were so impressed with what goes into making the materials.

First, from a technical standpoint, this tour is great because everyone gets to wear a headset that is tuned to a frequency that the guide’s microphone is on. Thus you never suffer from being in the back of the line or the guide having their back to you. Everyone can  adjust their volume to a level that suits them. EVERY TOUR EVER should do this :)

So during the tour we get to see fresh wool from the sheep’s back in bundles, learn about the methods of dying the wool, see it being combed and spun into thread, and see the thread on looms making fabric. We were walking through the mill, next to the giant deliciously 1960’s green machines that roll the threads, walking next to old school tables and safety posters from the 80s, and walking past consciously-ignoring-us employees on their breaks. Some of the looms were so old they use a patterned ticker-tape looking thing that “tells” it what pattern to weave. This mill’s daily operations don’t appear to have changed in the past several decades, but if it ain’t broke…

The QA in the factory really impressed us… as the loom weaves the fabric, it is examined for errors/holes/etc.. and it is examined a couple of times after. Every square inch sees human eyes. In fact the human element is present at every stage in the production.  You can read a little more about this and see some blurry photos here.

The blankets are all made in the USA at Pendleton factories but the clothing is all sewn overseas.

Port of Portland, Terminal 6

First off here’s some facts swiped right from the Wikipedia entry:

  • Port of Portland’s marine terminals export the largest amount of wheat from the United States and third largest amount in the world.
  • It is also the fifth largest port for tonnage, third largest auto import gateway in the country, the largest mineral bulk port on the U.S. west coast, and the 17th largest port for cargo containers in the United States.
  • Around one thousand businesses and corporations are said to use the Port’s marine facilities.
  • Imports and exports at the Port of Portland total about $14 billion USD, annually.

Port of Portland has four terminals. We saw Terminal 6, which has most of the storage containers and cars. I don’t know why it is called Terminal 6 if there are only four total, but you can probably google that.

So this terminal deals with a lot of heavy stuff. This tour was really enjoyable because our guide was nice, loud and knowledgeable. We seemed to be driving around the premises after daily work was done so we didn’t get to see a lot of stuff going on but it was fascinating to see the big machinery and vast use of land. These photos were taken from inside the school bus, and it was drizzling, so forgive me.

Those crane looking thingies are parked right on the edge of the land, overlooking the columbia river. They lift up the containers and place them off and on the barges.

Each of these containers is the size of a load on a full size semi truck.

This neat machine picks up these massive heavy containers like it’s no big deal. It was interesting seeing this approach… it makes the PODS approach seem a little rudimentary. Also that POD container is half the length of these containers.

And that concluded our day. Not pictured: Peter and I enjoying a brown bag lunch I packed us, suburban mom style. It even had a freakin ice pack and napkins in it. And it met all our food pyramid guidelines.