Monday 3 October 2011

Home Again

Early start from Bellingham, on the road by 8AM. Headed up the I-15 & got to the border crossing at the peace arch & surprise, there was no line up at the border. Seemed like our good fortune until we discovered there was no duty free here. Border guard said she had been there 15 yrs and had never seen a duty free at that location. Had kind of counted on getting scotch, but alas it was not to be. I was thinking of quitting anyway - not!
Made good time and stopped in Kamloops for lunch. The good news was they no longer charge a toll on the Coquihalla highway. Stopped at a fruit stand and got a basket of fresh fruit & onward. Lots of road construction & light rain, so never made good time on this stretch. But got to Jasper for a late dinner. It was nice through the park, saw some Elk, a real nice bull and rain through this area. Must have been raining quite a bit as the snow cap on the mountains is starting to build & we were in single digit temperatures all the way. The overpowering 30-40C heat from last week just a memory.
North on highway 40 to Grande Cache in the dark. Lots of construction and this stretch was worse than usual. Heavy fog, rain & muck off the road in the dark, so at time visibility could be measured in feet. Probably the worst trip through this section we have ever had. Oh yeh, it is October in Alberta. North of Grande Cache the road was better, but we fought the fog & visibility until almost 100 clics from home. Could see the lights of a few hunters camps along the road, hmm, wonder if they are seeing anything! Got to the top of Kebelow hill & could see the lights of GP, 50 clics to the north. There must be a song or poem about the lights of home, because they looked inviting, even from that distance. Good travelling after that & got home about 11Pm, 14 hours on the road - a marathon. Time for a wee dram of, OMG - NO SCOTCH!
Well that's it for now folks, until we go back to sunny Arizona after Christmas.

Saturday 1 October 2011

Heading North

Breakfast in the hotel and off to an early start. Kind of a cloudy day and it rained last night. Drove up the coast for about an hour and then drove inland to the Interstate -5. North on the I-5 to Bellingham Washington.
Went through Portland Oregon, a seaport and large city. Not sure if the GPS took us on the scenic route, or if I missed a turn, but what a journey through the city. Major freeways & bridges. Never got a pic, but one huge bridge had about 6 lanes of traffic on each of the two decks. Made a wrong turn there and got to see a lot more than we had planned on. LOL
We had been through Seattle years ago & never thought anything of it. I think it grew a bit in the last 28 years. The freeways are as many lanes as Phoenix, 8 each way. It was pretty uneventful compared to Portland.
After Seattle, the BC license plates pretty much equal the Washington ones. Got to Bellingham where we booked in to the Quality Inn. Pretty nice rooms. Went for dinner to Shari's, pretty good food, our first time at one of these. The plan is to get up early, get some scotch from the duty free and cross the border. Probably go to Blaine now & cross in to Vancouver area.