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Published: September 23rd 2009
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Loading in from the side of the van
OK, so I haven't fixed the flat tire yet...I still hope to use the bike. Into Canada at last!
Up the Columbia River Valley in British Columbia
Tues Sept 8-Wed Sept 9: The day had come to enter Canada! We were ready, we thought. We'd laid in some fresh provisions and pulled our passports out of their hiding place. Not many people were at the border crossing on Route 95 so it looked like a piece of cake. Little did we know we were moving into the realm of illegality.
The guard at the crossing wanted to know how long we'd be in Canada.
“We're not sure,” I replied, happy to be a grey nomad at last, with no firm commitments. “That's not good enough,” he said firmly.
Think, Martha. “We're going up through Banff and then heading to Vancouver, then Denman Island for about a week to visit a friend. We should be leaving Canada by the end of September.” So much for happy wandering.
“I'll accept that,” he said. “Are you carrying firearms?”
“No,” I said (bemused).
“Are you carrying over $10,000?”
“We're not carrying much money at all.”
“Then how do you propose to support yourselves while in Canada?”
“Oh, we do have
money in the bank.”
Then came the clincher:
“Are you carrying any fruit?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have plums? Peaches?” (And a list of other fruits)
“Yes.”
“Pull over here.”
Oh my gosh! What next?
“Consume what you wish and throw the rest in the freezer.”
So we stood with our newly purchased bag of peaches and plums and ate what we could, feeling ridiculous (but remembering the trials of crossing fruit quarantine borders in Queensland) and soon another couple pulled up and got out munching their plums, too.
So we were just two in a long line of infraction-ers(?). When we went to throw away what we couldn't eat, the freezer was already chock-a-block nearly to the top of it.
By the time we got to Cranbrook the wind had come up quite a lot. We nixed the idea of morning tea in the park and sought out the library—a great refuge for travellers. There I worked for AGES trying to set up this travelblog, which had me befuddled. It's actually easy—but I didn'[t know the road in for people to receive it. Fortunately Phil was happy to sit and
read through his downloads from Alternet, Tom Dispatch, War in Context, The Guardian, New York Times—how can he ever keep up?
When we finally left the library, the wind was still howling and the sun was getting low. We decided to put up shortly thereafter at the Fort Steele (private) campground and splurged on getting an electrical hook-up. So rather than going to bed at 7pm again (I find that hard) we rummaged around for the extension cord and flexible armed desk lamp we had shoved in under the bed (just in case, one never knows when a lamp will come in handy!) and for the first time sat up with our computers in our little glowing van till nearly 10pm.
The next day the weather contined windy and cool, so we put in an unusually (for us) long day in the van, driving up the Columbia River Valley, as it turned out. We stumbled upon it, but were delighted--beautiful countryside!! At Columbia Lake lookout we met some Portlanders who were excited to see the source of their beloved river. We later found the actual headwaters of the Columbia much further north, but it was fun to see
How to get a king size bed
Take a smallish double bed fold-down seat, pack in lots of suitcases, etc, and overlay with foam.
As I'm no princess, it never bothers me if the skillet or toaster are under me! this huge beautiful lake and think its waters were rolling on down to Astoria. As Pete Seeger sang, “Roll on, Columbia, roll on”.
We stopped at a produce stand and bought the best pie in the world, strawberry peach, with a crust rivalled only by Greatta Beatty's. We drove past a town called Bugaboo and wondered if this was where Margie's friends had gone skiing, and we chatted with a woman at another scenic vista who told us to be sure to go to Emerald Lake and Takakkaw Falls in Yoho National Park—none of which we'd ever heard of, and all of which turned out to be very good advice. By mid afternoon we reached Golden and turned east for another early night listening to the rain in the darkness, at Yoho National Park.
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judith keene
non-member comment
Great to hear from you and that you are enjoying yourselves. Sounds wonedrful to be free to skive off but as a night owl I rather quail at the thought of darkeness and bed at 7pm. Love Judith