Day 5

---

Day 5.

Leaving Tsawwasen we negotiated Saturday morning Vancouver traffic & arrived at Eddie's shop in Surrey, picked up some new tyres to carry with us, Keith had the first service done on his bike and we were in the queue for the border crossing at Peace Arch by 11am.
The whole process took around 1.5 hours with the customs officer (1 of about 30 all packing heat) giving us some great tourist advice, places to visit things to see etc.
At a refuelling stop just down the road we saw the Greenleaf recreational Marijuana shop but decided to stick to coffee & Subway for lunch.
Onwards to Sedro-Wooley along a convoluted route - mainly due to GPS operator confusion we turned East into the "American Alps" heading towards our goal of Twisp. All the while looking for accommodation as the time was moving on, we turned off & visited the wild west looking town of Concrete.
The price of the hotel overcame our enthusiasm for the town so we continued East eventually finding log cabin accommodation in Corquindale. Bryan decided to fit his new rear tyre which due to faulty patches & levers (aka pathetic excuses) caused the whole exercise to develop into a debacle of monumental proportions which was solved by copious patches & the loan of the proprietor's air compressor. We have calculated we are doing around 1000km to the tube & about 500km to the patch! After a trip a mile up the road for dinner in a dry restaurant (This seems to be a bible belt with a church every 200m -PTL) we returned to have a few beers on the deck of the cabin. A fellow cabin occupant (Mike & his wife from Puget Sound South of here) came & chatted with us for a while & turns out they are also ardent motorcyclists. Mike is a really friendly guy who told us some great motorcycling stories & even invited us to stay at his house.
Tomorrow onwards East to join the Washington Back Country Adventure Trail & head South.

---