The first time I saw Sea-Tac Airport it was called Bow Lake and I was driving a 1933 Plymouth on Highway 99, a two-lane road with long stretches of nothing between Tacoma and South Park.

We lived at Star Lake and I was headed for work at Boeing.

There were some scattered restaurants like Banfield's Halfway House and The Blockhouse next to the Spanish Castle dance hall at Midway. The Ranch, Feasters, the Green Parrot, the Bluejay, and Roses Chicken were in Federal Way. Wee Waldorf and a couple of Mancas In and Out hamburger stands were popular.

From the highway, staring at it through the ever present fog, my first impression made me wonder why they would ever build an airport way out there.

Later, when we moved to McMicken Heights on the hill, we had a bird's eye view as the ad building grew into what today is an amazing structure where 700 people are employed.

This place where I once hunted snow geese (I never got one) on the perimeters of the single runway has come a long, long way.

We have used it many times since the days when we could walk down on the tarmac, climb aboard and visit with friends heading for Hawaii before we were asked by the pilot to leave as he had a schedule to meet.

Now it is a huge bustling city, crowded and all business if you don't have a ticket to fly.

Now instead of heading for your flight and waving goodbye with time to spare, you park in a corkscrew garage and leave your car, or use a taxi or ask a friend to drop you off at the curb and your friend goes home while you get in line, remove your shoes, go through an x-ray machine and then wander around a huge glittering array of exotic shops and restaurants.

Now travelers don't run to catch a plane. They can arrive hours early at the gleaming zillion-dollar glass and terrazzo palace and once through the x-ray machine they can make a leisurely adventure out it.

We asked the powers that be for a short tour of the place even though they have not always been too happy because we once ran a half page cartoon of one-time chairman of the board Henry Kotkins at the wheel of a bulldozer gleefully pushing Burien into Puget Sound.

Elsbeth and I, with no plans to fly any place very soon, were curious to see what the updated and enlarged interior looked like and wangled our way into a grand tour last week and hit the jackpot.

Our guide turned out to be Mark Reis, managing director of aviation. And an affable expert he was. Winner of a nationwide search among 80 applicants for the job, he and board member Pat Davis even provided a wheelchair for Elsbeth, who is still in recovery from knee replacement. Her chromium knee rang a bell you could hear in Federal Way.

With me pushing her we got a running commentary from our book-of-facts guide; e.g., Anthony's spectacular full-service restaurant did more than $10 million in sales last year.

The gigantic glass wall of window panels is able to move up to 14 inches without cracking in case of an earthquake.

We had lunch with great food and a striking view of the flying jets you can't get anywhere else in this state.

Mark lives in Ballard and is a graduate of Western Washington University in Bellingham. He planned on a career in environmental education and ecology, but then got a master's degree in public administration at Harvard.

The airport has 800 employees plus 80 police officers and 75 firefighters.

Last year they had about 30 million passengers and visitors, who come to pick up or drop off travelers.

It is like moving the city of Bellevue through every day.

Will we have the A380 land here? Not likely unless it is an emergency. Sea-Tac is not designed for it. No airline has ever inquired about it.