Saturday, September 4, 2010

As I said, we are homeward bound. In checking the route to Vancouver I found a road we had not traveled. It's called the Sun to Sea Road and it goes through Whistler, where the Olympics were held. It sounded like  one last adventure so I told Jim we should take it! Beautiful scenery, lots of aqua blue glacial streams, towering Canadian Rockies and fireweed in bloom, just gorgeous. Did I mention there were several 14 and 15% down grades, lots of hairpin turns, one lane bridges, etc etc. Our brakes were SMOKING and BILLOWING, Jim's nerves were shot, my nerves were shot,  it was not a good drive. During all of this Jim discovered our trailer brakes were not working. We got to Whistler really late, the campground where we were going to stay was $57 a night and you had to pay $1.50 extra for a shower. We found a campground south of Whistler that was cheaper so we drove there. Turned out their road was REALLY STEEP and long, but we finally reached it. Had really nice views of  the mountains and valley and the showers were free! Turns out Whistler is NEW NEW NEW, looks like Lake Tahoe, so we didn't stop for a look, just headed to Vancouver.  Fortunately the road from Whistler to Vancouver was great and we made good time. The road skirts Howe Sound for some 20 miles before entering North Vancouver. This is where we came to a complete stop, traffic was backed up as far as we could see. Occasionally we putted along at 10 mph, but mostly we sat in the sweltering heat (80 degrees) wondering what the h... had happened. Traffic finally clears and we quickly reach the border crossing. We sit in line for an hour, get within maybe a dozen cars of the border guards shack and see a sign that says RVS CANNOT BE IN THIS LINE! So now Jim is trying to figure out how to get in the next lane (which is coned off.) And of course, NO ONE is going to let us in, even if Jim drives over the cone things. We finally get over, pull up to the boarder guard and he says "what are you doing in this lane!" We explain there was an electronic sign that told us to, this pisses him off because no one told him about it! He lets us go without an inspection (hooray.)  We are now at Dan's for a few days, then on to see Cousin Jerry Parker and then we'll stop overnight in Portland to see Niece Jean. Hope to be home on Sept.11.

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