Break in Washington

Wow! It's been over a month. It looks like I left some stuff out from the last entry when I left Glacier and headed to Colville, Washington through Canada. I was only in Canada for aoubt 1 to 1.5 hours, but it was interesting. I stopped for a flagman and the first thing he mentioned was how far away from home I was. Had a friendly chat with him, until it was time to move on. There were some massive mountain passes that I went up and down. Hard on the brakes, but a little fun.

Entering Canada was easy, getting back into the US was a bit annoying. Which is in stark contrast to the last time I went to Canada. In all my travels, I was only detained once, in you guessed it, our friendly neighbor to the north that goes shopping in a backward country south of the border. Their reason for detaining me was because they could, NAFTA gave them the right. Oh great reason. Once the Canadians at NavCanada (almost a gov't organization) produced the contract, I was released.

I was talking about the annoying Americans this time, not the Canadians. I don't mind Customs/Border Guard doing their job, but I don't think being rude is in the job description. Perhaps I'm wrong. But they could have been nicer.

Did lots of stuff with my friends of course. I also returned east for 9 days to visit family and friends over Independence Day.

Note remember to talk about building house. And get pictures.

The last thing I did with friends before breaking off was to go to Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens Parks. Mt St Helens was interesting in several ways, but I'm too lazy to write about it now.

Ok, I guess what was interesting was the uniqueness of a volcanic area and its evolution. I hadn't ever witnessed it before and it's different from anything else I've seen. It's funny that while we were at Mt St Helens, there was a small earthquake that none of us felt.

We went to Seattle after Mt St Helens. I'm surprised I actually liked the city. Didn't do too much. Aquarium (it was decent), Pike Place Market (no biggie), and walked around that area. Had a very nice lunch before saying goodbye. Of course, since it was the last day with friends I had to wear my Google shirt. I was glad we were in Microsoft country. :-)

My friends played a very funny joke on me as we were leaving. They aren't religious (they are too nice for that), and I'm areligious (used to be anti). We were saying our goodbyes and Dave goes to clean out my car in case they left anything in there. Karen and I hug goodbye and Dave comes back. He telling me all this religious stuff about how everything will be ok and that Jesus will watch over me. Then he hugs me, which he's never done before. I figured they were just being goofy, as we all are when we get together. After a living together for a month, it was just releasing some of the silliness. So I get back to my car after this odd encounter, and sure enough, Jesus really was watching over me! Hallelujah!!! Praise the Lord!!! Dave had bought a little Jesus statue and put in on my dashboard. I just sat there and laughed my ass off. Y'all are probably just shaking your head, but it was very funny at the time. They should have come back and checked on me. We had many laughs later. But I think Jesus is pissed at me. For the first day, I let Him sit in the passenger seat. But then I cleaned up and locked Him in the glove box which is where He rests to this day. Oh no, mr. bill!

I drove around Seattle a bit. Unfortunately there was a Mariner's game that let out around the time I was trying to get on the ferry. Traffic in the area was a mess. The ferry to Bainbridge Island was pretty short, only half an hour. Now I'm eating dinner and heading out to the end of the Olympic Peninsula.

I spent the night at Heart O' the Hills. AFAIR, it was nice, but that was 3 days ago. I need to make entries more often. I really like the Olympic Peninsula. It took me a while, but I finally figured out what I like. It reminds me of Alaska. The trees and mountains and water. The mountains are steep and flow right into the water. The coast is very interesting with how craggy it is and the trees go right up to the ocean.