We finally reached Canada

June 15, 2009

Monday morning: We filled up the gas tank at the base for $2.82 per gallon, the most expensive gas yet. The drive from McChord AFB to the border was only about 3 ½ hours. The cities of Tacoma and Seattle were very interesting. We drove right through the middle of them on Interstate 5; infact going under some of the buildings in Seattle. The traffic was pretty steady and not so bad except one place. It took us about an hour to get through the two cities going about 60 mph. We chose to cross the border at Lynden, a small border town that would allow us to get into Canada without going into Vancouver, Canada. We figured the traffic there would make a delay crossing, and it was really out of our way by about an hour because the interstate went west into Vancouver, then out east again toward the highway we wanted. After crossing, we noticed a change in scenery right away. The trees were more hardwoods, unlike Washington where almost all the trees were evergreens. We went through only a couple small towns, a couple of larger towns, and then stopped in Kamloops for the night. We found that the gas was definitely higher in Canada when we filled up at days end. Now we bought gas by the liter instead of the gallon and paid $1.04 per liter, which was Canadian dollars (exchange is $1.00 US to $1.05 Canadian). So the fill-up cost $187 Canadian, about $170 US (which we will not know for sure until we get the VISA bill. We chose to camp in the parking lot of the COSTCO grocery store parking lot to save money tonight. We fixed hot dogs for supper and then Suzanne and Gil took a walk down the street to find a map of Western Canada for tomorrow’s trip. There is a slight breeze blowing in the windows which is nice. We did have a little sprinkle of rain just as we got into town, but now the skies are clear. I will sign off for now and write more tomorrow night. I have saved some pictures from today and put them on the computer so I can email them and put them on the blog after we get into Alaska which we think will be Saturday sometime.