dolari | Aug. 15th, 2007

Aug. 15th, 2007

Monday, August 6th

We got up bright and early to hit the road towards Vancouver. We left about 10-ish and I waved Seattle goodbye. I'm really sold on the city - and in fact have in mind a place or two to live in (the area I stayed in, Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond environs).

I had had a talk with one of Erin's friends the night before, Kevin, who made it pretty clear that I would be able to survive on a Current Job salary there, and live pretty well. It definately looks more and more like this will be a reality. The issue now is, do I wait for Big Major Corporation to drop us and take Current Job with me to ease the transition to a new place? Or do I get a job, leave Current Job, and move up sooner? So many decisions, not really much time.

The trip up was gorgeous, reminding me a lot of Central Pennsylvania, but with more logging and more lakes. We pulled into rest area, as I usually do on long trips, (okay it was an hour and a half, but it was still a trip!), and saw The Big Cedar Stump which is, essentially, a Big Cedar Stump:

I could have easily driven my car in it, if not for the curb and the police who were making sure the rest area was secure. We continued on up to Bellingham, then took off on a bit of a detour.

Originally our plans, up to a day before I left for Seattle, were to go up through Blaine, into Peace Arch Park, and then make a loop around Avenue 0 (more on that later) into White Rock. But I remembered something from a few years ago, about a tunnel between the US and Canada under Avenue 0, but the town wasn't Blaine - it was Lynden. Not that I planned to smuggle anything, but it reminded me that there was another crossing some miles away, that was smaller, less accessed, and provided a longer drive on Avenue 0. We aimed our car towards Lynden.

I have to say I was nervous, I'd never made a border crossing alone on my own (in fact, this whole thing was my first real non-working vacation alone). I was totally prepared for anything - I had my ID, I had my birth certificate, I had a voters registration, I had my name change papers. Everything I'd need to get in and out even if there was a fight with customs.

We pulled into the border actually before I realized it (It took Emily to tell me we'd crossed). Pulling into Customs, they asked where I was from, and I stuttered my way through (ever since 9/11, I've get terribly flustered with authority types worrying about my Ps and Qs, not an attitude I should need to have but...). I messed up his questions a few times (Guard: "Where are you from?" Me: "We're from San Anto---San Marcos" Emily: "Um, I'm from Victoria, BC." Guard: "How long will you be in Canada" Me: "We'll be here till Friday" Guard: "What do you mean 'we?' She's from here?" Me: "I mean me.")

Eventually Emily just took over for me...then he waved on us through. Never saw my ID, never saw my Birth Certificates, nada. I just went on in. And that's when the first culture clash hit. My mindset was "Wow, your country is wide open - I wouldn't have let me in without more questioning." Emily's was more of "Your country is too strict." In the end - I prefer Canada's way of thinking. :) I tended to do that through the whole Canadaian portion of the vacation. ;)

Something I've always wanted to do, since I knew the road existed, was drive down Avenue 0. Avenue 0 sits just inches north of the US border. Even before I ever met Emily, before I had ideas of fleeing the US, I'd wanted to drive Avenue 0. And with us coming up through Lynden, I finally got my chance:

Okay, the idea of driving on a road with a car may not be exciting to anyone, but I'm a roadgeek. I take pictures of highways signs, interchange configurations, and, in some cases, have tresspassed just to get a good pic of an old alignment. Avenue 0 was one of those experiences only a Roadgeek could have. I was driving in Canada, a scant few feet from the US border. Which is wide open at this point.

The only fences up are the fences property owners put up, but mostly it's US fields right up to the curb. Again, my mindset was "Wow, it's wide open here, anyone could get in or out!" But then I'm sure that if someone tried, DHS/INS and whatever the Canadian equivalent would be there mighty quickly. I also get the feeling the neighbors know who should be there and who shouldn't should the authorities not get there right away.

That isn't to say no one has a sense of humour about it all. On the US side of the border is a little area with a traffic warning sign: "SLOW! SMUGGLER'S CROSSING." It's a US bed and breakfast right on the border, overlooking the Fraser Valley in Canada.

It was a nice long drive along the border when we finally made it to PEace Arch Park, a park that any American can enter into from the US, and any Canadian can enter from Canada and enjoy both sides of the park (provided they leave the same way they came in, I'm sure).

I prolly sound like a xenophobe - I'm not. It's just after living so close to the UberSecured Mexican Border, and being on the frontlines of the dreaded Brown People Invasion That Threatens Your Daughters, you kind of begin thinking in terms of borders being Solid Things That People are Breaking Through. It's actually kinda nice that the border up here is so open. There're no fences ruining the landscape, no constant guards asking questions, worries about runners trying to carjack you or INS officials mistaking you for an illegal immigrant.

The park itself was rather sparse - an incredibly large lawn, with an arch in the middle and flowerbeds on either side...but we spent a lot of time there getting pics, enjoying the gardens on either side, the oceans and the log houses. There's a great pic of Emily and I kissing across the border. :) That's prolly a felony in Texas.

On leaving the park, the first order of business was to get some cash. My greenbacks were (almost) no good here, so I ran off to an ATM. And they have something here we dont' have back home! Locked ATMs! You can only get into them with an ATM card from that bank! I ended up haivng Emily let me into a Kiosk and we both took out some cash from out own accounts. I had my first taste of the Canadian Dollar:

I had no idea there were no $1 bills in Canada.

From there, we picked up a map of Vancouver and I made my first Canadian purchase. Running around in Canada that first day was very strange. I felt a lot like I did when I first transitioned. This whole "Do they know who I am? Will I get caught being an American?" Even paying for that map with Canadian money made me feel like I was "fooling" someone. It was this whole "I'm not what you think I am, and I hope you don't find out" kind of feeling. ::laugh:: I felt like I was in danger of being read. :D Not to worry, though - if there's anything I learned from this trip it's that Canadians do one thing very well - they mind their own business. :) I wish more of us did that....

We moved onto Semiahmoo Park, on the ocean, or at least the Juan de Fuca straits. This was really the first time I got to see the ocean. I'd seen bits and pieces of thje bay and Lake Washington, but it was here where I could walk in and say I'm In The Pacific OCean.

When I was a kid - My parents took me to the gulf. Officially, the Atlantic Ocean. Being a stupid kid, I got thirsty while playing around in Corpus Christi and took a swig of water. Wow. That was a mistake. And one I was destined to repeat, as now I was ont he Pacific side of the ocean. Emily has video of me taking a full swig of Pacific Ocean water. It's...salty. Just like the Atlantic. I try not to think too much of what might have been in it. Red tide, fish poop, radioactive waste. All I know is that it needs pepper.

We visited some of Emily's old haunts, a playground she'd play at as a kid. Her grandmother's old house. Then a sledding hill. White Rock has some serious serious hills, and a real Marine Beach Town feel to it, like Amity in Jaws. After getting our bearings, and checking in with our hostess in Vancouver, Jean, we made our way towards The Big City.

I never realized the beauty of British Columbia until we rose over a crest into the Frasier Valley. I was awestruck by the beauty of Vancouver surrounded by the hills of Vancouver. It's like the sleepy little town of Bellefonte, PA on steroids. I was literally caught mid-sentence. I was talking about some kind of highway related thing I think, and was saying something along the lines of "Well the fonts are---woah." It's really that striking.

We made our way up to Burnaby, just east of Vancouver to unpack and settle in at Jean's. After meeting up with her, and getting the keys to the apartment, she had to leave to drop her mother off , so we went in search of some kind of Canadian Staple for dinner. I offered up Tim Horton's, not knowing that it really isnt' a restaurant but a donut shop. Jean offered up White Rock, which immediately got a smile from Emily and murmurs of "Pirate Pack." Off we went.

White Spot was actually just a really nice sitdown restaurant, a lot like Jim's for you in Texas or Eat'n'Park in Pennsylvania. Now, anytime I've ordered tea outside of The Deep South, I usually get a tall glass of unsweetened iced tea. So when I ordered one here, I expected a tall glass of unsweetened ice tea. Granted, I did get Iced Tea. So I threw in a packet of sugar to sweeten it up. I never thought to even check if it was sweet or not and ended up with Tea Syrup. Oh, my. Thankfully, I was much smarter the next glass of tea. ;)

From there we went up to Grouse Mountain, but unfortunately our funds were too tight (mine were getting tighter) to actually take the gondola up, however, the drive and view just GETTING there was spectacular. From there, we went to Cleveland Dam, which was the panorama pic I'd put in the entry below this. My god, Vancouver is beautiful.

By now it was getting late, so we trudged back to JEan's. Jessie, who was having a surgery in Montreal, called while we were out, (We're sorry we missed you, Jessie!), but I was told I had a present waiting for me in the fridge...

FOURTY EIGHT COFFEE CRISP BARS.

Holy cow.

Thank you Jessie. :)

We talked for a while with Jean before she went to bed, and then after enjoying the evening's night air (no one closes their doors or windows in Canada), we slept. It'd been a wonderful introduction to the great nation of Canada. And there were three more coming....