Crossing the Border

First of all, it looks like you can read this blog as a guest without creating a Google account, but you can't leave a comment unless you do have an account.  Getting an account doesn't seem like a big deal - I have one and don't seem to get spam email or anything.  Make sure you bookmark the URL so you can return another day.  Send me an email if you have problems.

Well, Doreen got up a half hour before I had my alarm set and she was all set to get going!  We got to the Coho ferry before 8am for the 10:30am ferry, but they said it was full, even though there weren't that many vehicles in the parking lot.  That was a great start to a trip - I guess just about everyone must get a reservation.  So, we headed out to Swartz bay and missed the 9am ferry and caught the 11am ferry.  We crossed the border at the Blaine truck crossing - it had only a 5 minute wait time, whereas the Peace Arch had about a half hour delay.  We had no problems at all getting across the border.

We stopped in Bellingham to do a big grocery shopping - we didn't bring much with us just to make sure we didn't have trouble at the border.  Then we headed across State Route 20 to Cascade National Park - this is a great road, scenic and little traffic, and we miss all the Seattle traffic going this way.  We found Goodell Campground in the park to spend the night, and it turns out it was free too!  The location was  N48 degrees 40 min 21.7 sec,  West121 degrees 16 min 03.1 sec (for all you Google Earth fans).

15 October Saturday

We both slept in late after the big day yesterday, so we didn't get away from here until 11am.  I hoped to get to Spokane thinking we could possibly find a church to go to, so we had fairly long day of driving.  We stopped along the way quite a few times though because the scenery is really nice along Route 20.  This highway is closed in the winter as soon as the snow starts, and they reopen it in the spring.  There is no snow yet though, and the weather is just beautiful, although it got down to just a little above freezing at night.  We stopped for awhile at Grand Coulee Dam, which is quite large, although not as impressive as I thought it might be.  And we made it to Riverside State Campground (N49 41 45.9, W117 29 39.9) by 5:30pm in time to cook hamburgers for supper on a nice campfire.

So far, Doreen has been doing very well, and seems to be enjoying the traveling.

I'll let this do for a first post.  I'll try to get some pictures for next time - which will be whenever I can find a WiFi connection (We're parked outside a Starbucks in Spokane using their WiFi right now.)