Road Trip: Day 12

Starting: Renton, WA

Ending: Vancouver, BC  CANADA

Distance Traveled: 180 miles / 289 km

Day 12 Goal: Vancouver, British Columbia

There were two parts to today:

1. Visiting and hiking with a friend in Washington state
2. Crossing the US / Canada border and checking-in at my long-term stay in Vancouver

Part 1

I had the extreme pleasure of visiting with a childhood friend this morning! She, her three year old son, and I hiked through Franklin Ghost Town - avoiding MANY spider webs - and ended with lunch at a new pizza place near her house.  There isn’t much left of Franklin, except for some building foundations and a very deep mining pit.

Seriously, the spider webs were everywhere.

Franklin was a mining town in the lower Cascade Mountains

There is still a mining shaft left open. It's covered with a grate, but only since 1984

Laura ventured out to take photos down the 1300 ft mine shaft

I did not.

 We attempted to hike to the town’s cemetery, but the path became very overgrown and the spider webs began appearing IN the path at face level, so we turned around.

In lieu of the cemetery, we hiked back towards the entrance and turned to go wander down towards the river. We could hear the sounds of the river growing louder and louder, but once again the path grew smaller and smaller. Not far from the river we stopped dead in our tracks as we came face to face with a huge spider web that literally spanned the path from one side to the other. We shrunk backwards a few steps, looked for any giant, Harry Potter-sized spiders, and decided we’d done enough hiking for one day. 

Total Distance Hiked: 3.37 miles

Calories Burned: 892

To refuel, we went for lunch at MOD Pizza. The pizza I ordered had a stated calorie count of 880… so that evened out nicely.

Part 2

I had run out of road to the west, so the time had finally come for me to venture north of the border and into my favorite city. I reached Peace Arch Park about 2 hrs after leaving my friend’s home. The amount of nervousness I felt was, well, excessively high. Bringing a car full of suitcases into a country tends to raise a few eyebrows, so I was worried they’d put a limit on my stay.  The border patrol officer I encountered was inquisitive and did search my vehicle, but in the end I got a clear pass and was waved through into beautiful British Columbia!  As I drove away from the border and merged onto the expressway all I could muster was that weird and creepy combination of laughing and crying. I was so relieved, happy, and surprised that this whole plan was actually happening that I felt overwhelmed.

My drive into the lower mainland featured a comedy of errors. I’ve visited Vancouver 6 or 7 times (I’ve honestly lost track) but arriving with a car was a new challenge.  I made a few wrong turns. I circled the rental building multiple times without success in locating their parking garage, so I was forced make an expensive call from my US cell phone. The key fab I was subsequently given was programmed incorrectly, so while I was able to access the building I was unable to access my floor. To be let up I had to grab suitcases from my car, walk across the street to the rental office, and then have the guard escort me back so he could activate the elevator. But given the many trips I had to make, I did meet a few of my neighbors. So we’re counting that as the silver lining.

Initial thoughts on my two week rental:

• The best part of the bathroom is that it’s configured exactly the same as the bathroom in my Bensenville apartment, right down to the outlets and the towel racks. By the time I finished unpacking my toiletries I felt right at home. And also, the odds of me running into something in the dark are greatly decreased, which is also fantastic.
• Fancy TV cable is fun, but scary. I have more channels than I will ever watch and I have no idea how to operate this damn thing. If anyone is a cable expert please speak up. There’s still a weird box in the middle of the screen that I can’t get rid of.
• As I was checking-in and running back and forth to unload the car, I noticed that everyone was speaking Spanish. Not French, Spanish. Um… I crossed the correct border, didn’t I?

Rental unit pictures and initial Vancouver wanderings will follow tomorrow! Thanks to all for coming with me on this journey!