God Bless America!!!

  


We awoke Friday morning to find the Alcan open again so we left our fabulous accommodations at Been Lazee RV park and headed out for the longest driving day of our lives. We, as Kai likes to say, had to grudge-f#$% it all the way back to America. As Kai took the first shift of Operation Get Us Back to America STAT, I sat back relaxing, reading up on the latest People magazine. Engrossed in my article about the now deceased crack-head Amy Winehouse, I felt Kai take a deep swerve to the shoulder and let out an, "Ohhhhh shit."  I glanced up to see a cop with his lights on do a u-turn on the highway so as to meet up with us. As the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer approached our window our hearts were pounding, adrenaline flowing as we prepared to Royally Mounted and screwed yet again since our trip south began just 5 days ago.


RCMP- "Hi there folks, where ya' headed to in such a hurry?"
Kai- "America, Washington actually."
RCMP- "I see, do you happen to know how fast you were going?"
Kai- "Gosh I dont know, maybe 110 or 120 kilometers"
RCMP- "Well actually I got ya at 134 km, soooo.."
Kai- "Oh geez... I see"


After this interaction he heads to his truck with our registration and information while Kai and I debate over how much a speeding ticket might cost in British Columbia and if you can pay it online or not... I'm wondering if we might have time later in the trip to return to Canada in hopes of contesting it and maybe the cop would no-show...


RCMP- "Ok, well I'm going to go ahead and issue you a warning today. We like to extend a friendly courtesy to our neighbors from the north here ya' know, but we ask that you please try to respect our laws and speed limits while here ok?"

Black bear gettin' his grub on..

Beautiful detour on the Cassiar Hwy

Hyder, AK

Hot Dog

Traffic Jam

Biker friend

We nearly burst into tears! Canada had given us a break!?!?! This was an odd sensation, one we had not felt since arriving in this strange, yet familiar setting. We ran with it... putting the robot on cruise control for nearly the rest of the trip and spending lots of time behind logger trucks. Kai did a 5 hour shift, we stopped for a short while in hot, desert-like Cache Creek for a burger before continuing on my own 5 hour shift. We briefly saw one of our biker buddies but he flew by at 80 mph which was unfortunately no longer in our cards.

Cache Creek, BC

On approaching the Canadian-American border, we found ourselves stuck in 5 o'clock Vancouver area traffic. After yet another hour long wait at the border, we were able to happily greet our American border patrol officer. Anything to declare? Yes, we are so happy to be home!!!!


A few miles into Washington state and our AT&T 3G network popped back up and we were able to call home. What a long day... we rolled into Seattle and enjoyed a late, steak dinner with friends Nate and Rose, who had been expecting us a full 24 hours earlier. It was great to see them, and fantastic to eat a home cooked meal as we had been subsisting on chicken sausage hotdogs, triscuits, string cheese, and one frozen bag of Skillet Sensations, not so sensational after all.


Cutting our visit short, we pushed on to Hillsboro, Oregon arriving at 3:00am. It took everything we had to pull ourselves out of the real, large, pillow top mattress and hit the road again. We transferred everything out of the Robot and put it into the Family Truckster, our new home and ride. She's a big girl, if comparing her to a human girl, you might say that she's "big boned." The bed in the back just may very well be a toddler mattress as its slightly wider than a twin but not as long. Oh the good times to come...




Up next is a weekend in Bend, Oregon to visit with my family before heading to the Oregon coast to see Kai's. OFT officially begins next weekend as we kick it off with our friends' wedding in Bellingham, Washington.