TACOMA, WASHINGTON

Tacoma is only about forty minutes south of Seattle on I-5 and shares the main airport (Sea-Tac International) with its larger neighbor. Tacoma is named after Tahoma, which is what the Puyallup Indians called Mount Rainier.

Tacoma is probably most famous for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which was initially built in 1940. Unfortunately, the bridge was not designed very well, and it swayed during windstorms. Finally, just four months after it opened, the bridge was destroyed by a particularly strong windstorm; the video of the bridge collapsing is still shown to high school students worldwide as an example of how not to design something.

The new bridge is thankfully more stable and, at 2800 feet long, it is actually one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.

There are a few other sights to see in Tacoma, but we were unable to see any of them due to time constraints. But we did see a baseball game, so click on the links above to see our description of Cheney Stadium and the game that we witnessed.