Bellingham to the Border

Our last day on US Soil was spent in Bellingham at Pat's House. What a cozy place with a great view of Bellingham Bay and early Thursday morning, we saw the Alaska Ferry coming into Port. John polished Rocinante from top to bottom. A neighbor came over and said that in Alaska we would look like "newbies" since up there, the dirtier the camper and higher the badge of honor!


In the afternoon, we went for a long beautiful walk along the boardwalk in Fair Haven and also hit Wal-Mart one last time before having dinner at home and finally getting to bed. Friday morning found us at Woods Coffee by the water where they have free wi fi. A nice lady struck a conversation and told us about her stay in Alaska. We gave her the blog information and hope she follows along! We checked our emails, sent our blog posts, got diesel and propane, mailed some letters, called our son Jack, my sister Bev and then heard from Chris just before we started the engine. A perfect sendoff!


The ride to the border was only 20 miles or so, and the wait was short as another lane opened right as we got in line and a lot of people in front of us scurried over.

The border patrol woman was humorless and asked a lot of questions. Where are you from, where are you going, how long will you be in Canada, do you have weapons, what kind of food, how about liquor. John had his documents ready - passports, car registration, insurance, etc. and she snatched them from him. We were stymied on some of the questions - how long in Canada - we don't know. "Most people go right on through if they are going to Alaska, " she says. She asks him to take off his sunglasses, takes a long hard look, then thrusts his paperwork back at him. She gestures with her head to go on. I wanted to lean over him and say "Can you say --Welcome to Canada?"

We stopped at the visitors centre (notice the spelling? We're in Canada now!) We got tons of paperwork and ate a quick lunch in the camper before heading toward Vancouver.