Welcome Abroad!

"Good morning!" I said.
"Where are you from?" he said, sans warmth, and
"Where are you going?" he said.

For lack of a better answer, I said I was going to the Peace Arch (which, I know now, is a stupid destination).

"Why are you crossing here then," he said, with no attempt to conceal his disdain, "instead of at the Peace Arch?"

I did not say because I'm a shunpiker; I'm not on the interstate and don't want to cross there. I divined that as unacceptable answer. I just said I'd been in Lynden and this crossing into Canada was closer.

He looked skeptical; I felt like a criminal, or an idiot.

"Go ahead," he said rolling his eyes and returning my passport. Clearly, since I didn't have any weapons, according to me, in his mind I was merely an idiot.

Reluctantly leaving Kale House, I had left Everson mid-morning and driven to Lynden, the town founded by my ancestor Phoebe Goodell Judson and her husband (remember my GPS I named Phoebe before taking off across the country last summer?). It is a very conservative town, first inhabited by Dutch Reformists. There appear to be more churches than anything else in the small town. I looked for the bronze sculpture of Phoebe and Holden, without success. The girl in the convenience store said she had lived there all her life and not heard of it. I undoubtedly knew more about the history of her town than she did.

I did find their graves before I proceeded north through the valley and past the neat arches of raspberry farms and on to the road that runs parallel to the border, the US road on the right, Canada on the left.

AT&T welcomed me abroad, if the border patrol was less than thrilled to have me. When I returned at the more acceptable crossing, I realized I could have told him I was at that crossing because in a toss-up between a 30 minute wait and a two minute wait he won, an insubordination that probably would have resulted in a strip search.

I have never been able to convert to metric, and I sure didn't want to get a speeding ticket in Canada. How fast is 80km/hr? I figured cutting it in half was a conservative estimate and close enough. Then I realized my oh so smart international Honda had it right there on the speedometer.

Per gallon gas prices in Canada don't end in 9/10ths. I saw .7, .8, even .0. And prices in each town are pretty much the same at all stations, unlike a town in Washington earlier in the day with a twenty cent difference at stations on adjacent corners. Other than that and speed limit signs it was hard to tell I was in a foreign country: Wendy's, McDonald's, Starbucks, Hampton Inn, Staples. Well, there was that mountain range that wasn't the Cascades that are normally to my north; and that body of water to the west that wasn't Puget Sound or the Pacific Ocean but the Strait of Georgia.

After the cold rain and hail on Saturday, and early clouds on Sunday, the day was spectacular. I drove north for a while on 13, then turned west on 1A, then south on 15 to White Rock. White Rock is a narrow, crowded beach town with the  Strait on one side of Marine Drive and shops and restaurants on the other. And lots of people on a warm sunny Sunday afternoon in March. I moseyed along it until I encountered a detour sign that turned up the hill. I'm talking hill here. Nearly straight up, first gear with running starts at the cross streets. Houses on the cross streets that I can't even imagine the cost of living in. I parked and walked a bit, took a few pictures, then headed for the Peace Arch and the line to cross the border. I didn't figure out how to walk to the Arch－not by going to the Peace Arch Park. The arch is between the north and south bound inspection stations.

A moment of panic at not being able to find my passport, resulted in turning out of the line (thankfully before I was too far in) and into a parking lot that might have been the way to get to the Arch. It had fallen between the passenger seat and the door. Finally getting to the front of the line, the guard came out of his booth and walked to the back of the car. He didn't do that to the cars ahead of me. I briefly wondered if the other border patrolman had put out an APB on the idiot going to the Peace Arch but crossing a few miles to the east. He asked where I was from, where I had been, and why I had driven all the way from Centralia to take a picture at White Rock. And what happened to my front license plate. Uh, hmm. Uh oh. I bet that was the one that was in the middle of the road at the railroad tracks in Centralia a couple of weeks ago.

I left feeling like a criminal AND an idiot. And waiting to be pulled over.

I continued on my off interstate way to Ferndale, then took I-5 to Hwy 11. Chuckanut Drive snakes high above Samish Bay south of Bellingham. The San Juan Islands are in the far distance, lesser islands closer. I saw two more bald eagles soaring above me. The water sparkled at low tide, exposing the oyster fields. It was a glorious day to be.

I must say, it felt good to be back on American soil. I would rather be a criminal on home turf than abroad.