dolari | Mar. 17th, 2009

Mar. 17th, 2009

I know everyone would like some news about the engagement, but this post comes first.

Monday, February 24

The third of the four Seattle Scenic Drives took us (Erin and myself) to the Southeastern portion of Seattle, through the Atlantic neighborhoods and Southwestern shore of Lake Washington. We found a small park with a gorgeous view of Seattle to our west.

Seattle from the West, 5940x2264 3.6MB

While it was a gorgeous view, it overhangs a cliff...and they put down a floor grating so you could see under you. One glance down, and my survival instincts kicked in, and, well, I moved away, quickly.

We got back in the truck, driving slowly down the hills and bluffs above the coastkline past the Mt Baker School and into the incredibly expensive houses of Ridgeway Place, including this one whose roof has too much yeast and will prolly need to be remade.

We continued down through Columbia City, into South Seattle, Holly Park, South Beacon Hill and Sunlap Park. As much as I love these scenic drives, this one has either changed too much since 1963, or simply has gone downhill. Most of this was just urbany-suburbia for most of the trip till we got back to the Lake Washington coast. There just wasn't much scenicky about it, so there weren't many pictures.

Things picked up when we got back to the coast at Seward Park:

The Ends of the Rainbow, 5588x2284, 3.2MB

Japanese Stone Garden, 7272x2155, 9.9MB

We slid along the coast of Lake Washington, coming up above the I-90 floating bridges, looking back at Bellevue. There's a little park up there, just above the Freeway entrance tunnels:

By this time, the sky was getting dark, and we were qwuickly losing any good light to take pics. Sad really, because the best parts of the drive came right up here - Coleman Park, Frink Park, LEschi Park, and the Washington Park Arboreutum. My god. Back in the day, all this area was actual honest to goodness rainforest.

These four parks are still incredibly pristine parks, full of long tall thickly forested trees. We're talking driving through Endor here. There wasn't enough light to take good pics, though. I'll have to tour these parks later in the day. In fact, doing these scenic drives AGAIN in the summer when there's more light is on my agenda.

We made our way back to Volunteer park where it was much too dark to continue the trip. There wasn't much left, but downtown, so we decided to head back to Erins for dinner. But not after one last pic:

Seattle Art Museum, 30722x792, 1.2MB

I know everyone would like some news about the engagement, but this post comes first.

Monday, February 24

The Ends of the Rainbow, 5588x2284, 3.2MB

Seattle Art Museum, 30722x792, 1.2MB

So.

The fateful weekend.

Tuesday, March 10

Because of the time differences when I lived in Texas, our "anniversary" as it were was March 10th for me, and March 9th for Emily. With that in mind, I wanted this weekend with her to be special. I'd budgeted enough money for us to do pretty much anything we'd like, and she'd decided on a trip to Victoria.

I took off for the border and got there a little later than I'd have liked, about 3 or 4. Stupid me looked at the border wait times and saw Peace Arch was 5 minutes and the PAcific Crossing was 10 minutes. Shoulda gone for the PAcific Crossing.

The Peace Arch crossing is the "main" crossing into Vancouver, where all the tourist traffic goes from I-5 where it turns into BC 99. The Pacfici Crossing is a smaller crossing a mile or two away which handles commercial traffic and "townie" traffic - people from Blaine going into Surrey. It's known fo rbeing a quicker crossing, and a bit more lenient (Lynden is my favorite (pretty lenient) , but is QUITE some ways away from Vancouver).

I went through Peace Arch and knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the two people directly in front of me, and the one car in the other lane pulled in for further questioning. And then there's me. Mexican. In a beat up truck. With Texas plates. I gave the border guard my passport, he immediately asked for drivers license as well. As soon as he saw Texas on it, I was asked to pull in.

I pulled in, grabbed my "Orange Folder." My Orange Folder I put together for my first crossing. It has everything I'd need in case of trouble - birth certificate, name change papers, passport, social security. It also has my job offer letter, and occasionally my rent bill. I was grilled, saw them going through my truck with a fine toothed comb. I wasn't worried at all - I'm not carrying anything illegal...till I remembered I had my hormones and estrogen pills in an unmarked bottle in my duffel bag. THEN the worrying started. They ARE controlled substances after all.

I was given a grilling as to who I was seeing and how I knew them (I've learned that "She's a Family Friend" is a good keyword when trying to explain my relationship with Emily). They asked for her exact address, I didn't know it...but gave them the intersection near there. They then asked if I ahd anythign proving my address in Renton, and this is where my Orange Folder saved my bacon. I didn't have a rental statement (I will from now on, let me tell you), but I had my job offer letter (and I mentioned my job badge was still in the duffel bag). I gave it to them, and they let me stew in the building for about 40 minutes.

I wasn't worried before, but I WAS worried about my pills. I don't bring over my whole stash of hormones, but I had three days worth, more than I usually bring. It was a harrowing 40 minutes, but when I was called back up, the agent I was talking to was MUCH friendlier, and told me next time I cross, things will be much easier if I bring my rental agreement or rent check. All the agents who were stern to me on the way in, friendly on the way out. Dodged a bullet.

Note to self - Get Washington Tags for the Truck in July. ABSOLUTELY. Consider getting a Washington WHTI compliant ID as SOON as things look more stable in Seattle. Both will go miles towards getting into Canada safer, easier, and more reliably.

I drove up to Emily who suggested we go see Coraline that evening after we finished rotating Boxey's tires and an oil change, which we did. But because we cut it too close, we decided to catch a later showing, so we could clean up and maybe get something to eat.

Before I left Canada, I had a package pickup which had two new pairs of pants, bought to alleviate Pants Crisis '09 (With all the money problems, I've been wearign the same badly repaired pair of pants for two months). I buy my clothes online, because I don't like getting the odfds look clothes shopping in stores. Which can lead to problems like I found out at Emily's, where my pants were one size too big, and many sizes too long (who knew I was a "petite?").

At the same time, I found out that I'd grossly misjudged the Ferry over to Victoria. IT wasn't $45 one way, it was $70 ONE WAY. $140 round trip. I checked my finanaces, and whule we could still do the Victoria part of the trip, it would SEVERELY limit what we could do there ($80 left in the credit cards after accounting for the fare). So I decided to run off to my bank account to see if I could pour any extra into my cards and that's when I realized I had another problem:

My electricity company is Batshit Insane. I pay my bill electronically. They don't take Credit Card payments, they pull directly from your account. I paid them three weeks before this trip. But they have this little clause in their payment that each payment needs to be "reviewed" before they'l l pull the money out. They pulled it out WAY after I'd budgeted this trip, not only killing any extra money I could put on the cards, but putting me DEEP into the hole. In fact, I had to pull $50 from credit cards to keep my bank account from going into "We're going to close your account" territory, dropping the $80 for the island down to $30.

So, in the course of a two hours I'd had:

1) Harrowing customs experience.
2) Pants that had to fit that didn't.
3) Bank Account Emergency that made us...
4) Unable to go to Victoria Island.

This was a lot to hit me at once. This was supposed to be the biggest weekend of my life so far, with no barriers to anything we wanted to do, and instead of it being the best, right out the door, the whole thing collapsed. I broke down. I totally broke down, right there and then. I just felt like I'd been repeatedly punched in the stomach.

We ended up cancelling the Victoria plans to free up some money. We'll try again soon...maybe next three day vacation I manage. We did go to Coraline (after working witht he pants to keep them wearable), and got pizza for dinner afterwards. Not the Dinner and Date I wanted for our Anniversary...but it was time with Emily. Hopefully the next day would be better. It kinda had to be.

So.

The fateful weekend.

Tuesday, March 10

Wedensday, March 11

With the Victoria trip off, I was back to my original plans for doing Vancouver this weekend. We woke up, got dressed and cleaned up. My original plan, as I told Emily, was to ride down all of Avenue Zero, which borders the US border, to Peace Arch Park. We slowly made our way out to Abbotsford, but not without ONE important pull-off.

It was a bright bright sunny clear day. Cold but clear. And all through the trip, Mount Baker loomed over over the city. Since I moved here, and began to see the real honest to goodness mountains and volcanoes on the horizon, I've begun to see them as almost mythological characters. It's hard not to be in awe of them, at least to me, whose never seen anything like them before in my life. Mt Rainier has become a "father mountain" to me in Seattle. Mt Baker, which is very hard to see in Seattle, and is much smaller, and almost completely covered in snow, has become the "mother mountain."

But in Vancouver, Mother Mountain is the incredibly large visible one (I've never seen Rainier in Vancouver). And she was going to bless this day:

Mt Baker - 3072x973 - 1.93MB

Aldergrove Panorama - 4096x508 - 1.44 MB

We finally made our way to Avenue Zero where Emily and I switched places. I told her it was so I could take pics...in fact, it was so I could pop onto the Sidekick. The phone picks up American Cell Towers which means I can get online, which I did. I'd originally planned to let people know I was on my way to Peace Arch to propose ain case anyone wanted to witness. Problem was - with the last minute switch back to Vancouver, everyone had already made other plans and no one was online. Boogers.

It's prolly a good thing - the ride along Avenue Zero was a LOT faster than I'd remembered. I did see some neat areas - including one or two spots where there was no ditch delineating the boundary, or the swamp that's just on the US side of the broder, crustal clear through the leafless trees that usually block it's view, or where Avenue Zero and Boundary Road sit side by side:

Boundary Road, Whatcom County, Washington, USA on the left, Avenue Zero, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada on the right.

In time, we made it to Pecae Arch. A lot faster than I'd expected, but we made it. Once we got there, we explored the gardeny area of the park, and got to the place where I'd wanted to propse. As Emly walked up to the tree I told her there was somethine here I wanted to show her.

I positioned her JUUUUST right, so that she was on the US side of the border and I was on the Canada side.

"Remember when I said I wanted this to be the most perfect weekend of our lives? Well, this is the most imperfect part of it, becuase I don't have anything I can give you but my love." I grabbed her hand, dropped down to one knee and asked "Will you marry me?"

She said "Yes." :)

I got up and gave her the buggest hug I could, telling her I loved her...when she said "I need to tell you...I've known abou this for about two months."

...guh....

Turns out Emily had read about my plans just FIFTEEN MINUTES after I'd posted them. She went to a friend's house who was on the special filter, and Emily forgot to log her out when checking her friend's pages. So she's known since January I was planning to propose.

Oh, well. She knew I was in love with her LONG before I'd told her - why change thigns now? :D

jessie_c and Jean had invited us over to their house after the proposal for a celebratory dinner, and after a quick stop to drop off used motor oil (how romantic!) and had a good evening with the folks, our first as an engaged couple.

The evening was capped off with a night at The Worst And Best Tim Horton's In The Universe. We ordered two ice caps, and a half dozen. Our ICe Caps had no whipped cream, the woman behind the counter refused to take my Visa, but then gave us a doze donuts...that we couldn't choose. O_o; Wow, what a wierd place.

We went to bed after a long night of reminiscing. A wonderful day despite the problems of the day before...