We left the ORV Park and drove through some beautiful scenery. We spent hours driving through curvy roads in the Wenatchee National Forest. We saw a ton of bikers headed up and down the mountainy roads. What thighs of steel they have. To celebrate their hard work we stopped and got a bag of cherries from a booth on the side of the road. Yummy.
We were heading to Vancouver. This was a place I really wanted to see for some unknown reason. Adam stopped here on his trip last summer, so it was completely out of our way to do again, but it was well worth it.
As we got to the border, there were several long lines with many RVS, vans, and other camper vehicles. They all seemed to get through burden free. Adam reminisced on his time through this same border entrance last year when they tore about his van searching for his drug stash. Upon not finding anything, and an hour and a half later, they left him to clean up their mess and put ALL of his belongings back in place. We laughed a little… thinking that would be so horrible now… so many storage units… so many nooks and crannies… so many things finally put nicely away.
We pulled up to the little booth with the large man looking down on us. We smiled. I waved. We were such friendly little American tourists. Where you going, he asked. We answered. How long you staying, he asked. We answered. Any guns, he asked. Oh, no none officer. Any alcohol? Just a small amount. Less than half a bottle. He nodded. Wrote things. Gave us back our passports. Almost smiled a little. Phew. We made it.
“Take this yellow paper to the officer ahead and pull in the lot to the left. We will just have to verify everything you told us before you can go on your way.” Ah, great. TearapartVANville here we come.
We pulled into parking space six. One spot away from a van with a U-Haul behind it with ALL of its contains littered about the lot. This person was clearly moving and now his carefully packed trailer was spread all over the pavement. Shelves, boxes, a huge statue, lamps... a real hodgepodge of a living room set.
We walked into the building and the guard on the right called us over. We handed him our paper. The guy outside specifically said they were going to check our alcohol amount, since they are more strict on that. The guy inside said they needed to check for guns. We have no guns, just like we said. And just like I reiterated by joking with the guy inside (“Guns! Ha! Yeah we don’t have any of those. I don’t even know what I’d do with one.” That probably really helped our case.). He asked us some more questions. Took the keys and told us to sit down, on the other side of the room as far away from the van as possible. Adam and I were nervous. We had no reason to be, but all the sudden I felt like a notorious drug smuggler who was about to go to prison. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie Broke Down Palace, where a guy hides drugs in these tourists’ suitcases, and they get caught at customs and go to prison. I felt guilty when I remembered a bottle of wine we didn’t declare. Would that send us over the edge??!?
About a half hour later the guy called us back up. We were on our way, he said. He even gave us some tips about the Liard Hot Springs we needed to check out. He suddenly became very friendly and felt like a new pal. He smiled and sent us on our way. Canada’s so great!
We got back to the van and looked around. Everything looked the same. I imagined it would look like we drove over a land mine with our belongings ravaged, but it looked like they skipped over our van and just kept destroying that poor guy’s living room set. Back to driving and on to Vancouver!
We arrived in Vancouver and it was nice and sunny outside. We headed toward the beach. We hung out there for awhile, played with a giant crab we found, took lots of pictures, walked around, and decided to find a place for dinner.
We found this restaurant pub called the Colony with pretty good food. Afterward we left to search for a camping/parking spot.
We drove outside of the city to a ski mountain area called Cypress Mountain. It offered gorgeous views of the city. Vancouver is surrounded by water with the city on one side and mountains on the other. There were huge ships in the bay and this outlook let us take it all in. It was a little smokey there
at this point, but not bad. We found a trailhead on the mountain and just parked in the lot there for the night. It was a quiet 4th of July night with no fireworks, but I guess that makes sense.