Oh, Canada

Ok, I’ll admit that I’m actually dreading writing this blog post, but just this one time. Why the heck would I do something that’s going to make me miserable, you ask? Because, clearly, I have OCD about these things. If I blog about one great adventure, I have to blog about them all. Just kidding, that’s not the real reason (but maybe a little). There’s just SO MUCH to talk about, I don’t want to leave anything out! I mean, it was an entire week of camping and exploring in the Great Northwest and the Great White North (aka Canada). There really isn’t even one word I can sum it all up in. Besides, that’d be boring. Plus, I also have five hours of work. With nothing to do. In a room of 103 computers, there are seven people. I don’t anticipate many distractions. So I guess I should stop rambling and get on with it.

Side note, to make reading this a little less confusing and to facilitate intermissions, I’m going to break it up by day.

And action.

Sunday
Something you should know about traveling with boys: you will never leave on time. Always give them like a two hour grace period, at least. And since it was just me and four boys (Grant, David, Trent, and Phil), this trip was no exception. We weren’t officially on the road until about 5:00 pm. But since it was vacation and we had no agenda it really didn’t matter. By some great miracle we got everything to fit in Phil’s Subaru. Seriously, the trunk was packed to bursting point. Surprisingly though, the back seat was quite comfortable. Nothing in our laps. Plenty of room for our feet. Miracle. We made it up through Boise, past the Oregon border, and into Baker City where our goal was to find a place to sleep for the night. We get off the highway and start making our way into the middle of nowhere, until we realize we’re heading straight for the prison. Yeah, we’re not trying to live a horror movie here. Somebody had the brilliant idea to see if there was a church building nearby, and there was on the north side of town. Even better, there was a park owned by the church right next to it. Miracle. So we laid out a tarp under a beautiful starry sky. A police officer did show up right before we were all settled in, but Grant easily handled the situation and the officer was totally cool about us staying there. I guess not many criminals or hooligans try to make camp in church parking lots.

Monday
We made our way up to Seattle, through the beautiful Oregon mountains and the lovely Washington forests. We definitely played Owl City’s “Hello, Seattle” song as we got close. I know, so cliché. But I’ve always wanted to do that. I really like Seattle. I love all the green and the ocean. If it didn’t rain nine months out of the year, I might consider living there. But I need my sunshine. Anyway, we explored just a small part of Pike Place Market (you have to see the fish throwing), saw the gum wall (so gross), and ate fish and chips and clam chowder at Ivar’s down on the wharf (yummy, but I don’t think it beats my dad’s chowder).

We didn’t stay long because we were itching to head north to the San Juan Islands and catch the ferry at Anacortes at 7:00. These ferries are sweet. We just drove our car right on and went upstairs to the passenger cabin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen four boys so excited. It was like Christmas, but better. And how can you blame them? We’re on a huge boat in one of the most beautiful places on earth. We sailed out to Friday Harbor, a little town on the main island, and made camp at a real campsite this time. While we made stew for dinner (we had six bags of chicken, like ten+ pounds of pasta, a large bag of potatoes, onions, carrots, rice – all to last us the week, which it did and then some), we fought off a couple of raccoons who were intent on stealing our food. Persistent little buggers. Good thing we had a car to lock everything away in and a tent to protect us!

Friday Harbor

Tuesday
The best parts of vacation are waking up when you want to and doing whatever the heck you feel like. That is an accurate description of this little trip. We just kinda meandered our way around the island, stopping at different sites like English Camp (an old British outpost) and Roche Harbor (where all the yachts are). The whole island, including its towns, is so picturesque.  Good thing I brought my camera.

Roche Harbor

Now, if you take the ferry eastward bound, you can island hop for free! So we jumped on over to Orcas Island to spend the night there. It’s about as big as San Juan Island, but much less inhabited. Apparently, this is where the money is and all the celebrities have private homes. They actually subsidize housing on the island for “normal” people so there are people to work at the grocery store and teach at the school. The man who worked at the campsite said if you live there, you’re either independently wealthy or have five jobs. Dang. We camped by a mountain lake. On an island. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Our campsite was raining caterpillars though! Literally, they were falling out of the trees. It was so fun cleaning them off everything. Just ask Trent. He loves them.

Wednesday
While Trent and Grant kayaked the ocean the next morning, the rest of us ventured to the top of Mt. Constitution. If people come to bike the San Juans, this is the big challenge. It’s quite a climb. But we were lazy and drove to the top. Actually, we wanted to hike it but wouldn’t have enough time to catch the ferry back to Anacortes. Oh. My. Gosh. I wish there were words that could truly describe the view up there. It was breathtaking. One of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. Even the picture I have below doesn’t do it justice. As Phillip put it, “You just want to weep it’s so beautiful.” Really, that’s probably the best description. There was an observatory tower at the top so you could climb up and see above the trees. The water. The mountains. The forests. Just see for yourself. God has truly given us an amazing earth to live on.

Heaven

Well, we ended up missing the ferry because we decided to return to the lake we camped by and bathe/swim in it. It reminded me of Hayden Lake (where I’ll be in less than a week!!!!!!!!). A little chilly, but not too bad once you got in. That’s a heck of a lot better than the arctic water in the ocean (not exaggerating). So we island hopped over to Lopez Island where we could catch another ferry back to Anacortes. It only delayed us like three hours, but we got to sit on a beach for a couple hours. I guess that’s not so bad.

Our next ordeal was getting into Canada. Border control, dun dun dun. First, we had to repack the car so we could smuggle the food into Canada. Produce and meats aren’t supposed to cross the border, and boy were we packing. Second, we strategically placed Trent as the driver of the vehicle (he’s half Asian). We figured that would look pretty normal going to Vancouver. Our car was not searched (we saw other vehicles being randomly searched) and we made it through just fine. Miracle. And then we were in Canada!! That was my first time, after living 100 miles from the border almost my entire life. A momentous occasion.

Ok, quick story. Our first impression of a Canadian? We were turning left out of a gas station and this man backs up, with traffic still coming, to let us go in front of him. Who does that?? We’ve concluded that Canadian people are the nicest, most chill people out there. And we love them. But we don’t love their roads. They are slow. Although everyone goes like 20km over the speed limit anyway. Yes, Canadians use kilometers. That was great fun for us.

Thursday
This day was the day we climbed rocks. Beautiful, granite rocks. Beautiful, granite rocks that are seriously right off the highway. We were in Squamish (super fun to say) for the next two days, home of world class rock climbing. It was awesome. We climbed for a good seven hours before going to find a campsite for the night. And this campsite had showers!! But no hair dryers (obviously). So I just used the hand dryer, haha. Basically, I only mentioned that because I wanted to point out how awesome I am. Anyway, I was grateful for the hot water and the fact that no bears came to visit us. Did I mention we camped in bear country for three nights?? Miracle.

Friday
We had also planned for this to be a climbing day, but the rain spoiled our plans. Trent and Phil dropped us off at the place we climbed the day before, while they went to climb this huge six-pitch monolith. The rain started maybe an hour and a half later. And it didn’t just sprinkle. It poured. We were soaked. Phil said the wall they were climbing had basically turned into a waterfall. I’m glad they used their good judgment and stopped climbing! So instead we headed to Walmart to find outfits for the boys to race in on Saturday. Picture purple, camo briefs and green ties. Actually, you don’t have to picture anything because there will be photo evidence if you choose to keep reading this novel.

Off to the left is the huge monolith Phil and Trent went to climb.

We drove up to Whistler to find a place to camp for the night that was closer to where the race was. Turns out someone cancelled at a campsite just two kilometers from us. Miracle. And the rain stopped long enough for us to put up our tent. Another miracle.

Saturday
The mood this morning was very solemn. I think everyone was a little terrified. The Tough Mudder is a 12 mile (19km) obstacle course with 22 obstacles designed by British Special Forces. That’s a little intimidating. But the sun was shining the whole time, when the forecast had been rain, so that brightened the mood a bit. Miracle. We were able to catch a shuttle and then a bus right from our camp up to Whistler Olympic Park. Their start time was 10:30 am. I was ready with my camera. And they were off. It actually looked really fun, and I wished I was doing it too. Ok, the ice baths did not look fun. But some of the other obstacles, like the mud crawlers and the walls and tunnels, looked like fun. The big kicker that got these guys to sign up for the race in the first place was the final obstacle: a path of dangling wires with up to 10,000 volts of electricity running through them. Apparently, none of them felt anything. Super lame. I think they ended up finishing in under three hours. They came. They saw. They got really dirty. And they conquered. And they have a headband and t-shirt to prove it. Nice work guys. I’m proud of you.

Before

After

We hit the local rec center for some showers and a nice swim before celebrating with a victory dinner, where each of the boys ordered their own large pizza. It was well earned. We discovered that the American border control personnel were much friendlier to us than the Canadian ones. Understandable. A car full of five 20-something-year-olds could cause a lot of trouble in a foreign country. But there were shouts of “Go America!” as we crossed back over. This was like 11:00 at night so we drove for another hour before we came to Arlington, WA. Once again, we searched out a church building and set up shop on some grass at the back of the parking lot. We’re all now pros at setting up tents so that was done in no time. No police tonight. We actually woke up (at 6:00 am so we could bail before anyone got there) surrounded by fog that kept us hidden from the cars that were already parked in the lot. Miracle.

Sunday
Driving in the car all day sucks. That’s all there is to it. My butt was actually sore the next day. From sitting. We did break it up by going to a Sacrament meeting in Kennewick, WA. Now you will actually have to picture this because I didn’t capture these images. Grant and I look normal. He brought church clothes, I brought a dress. Phil’s pants are still wet so he’s in cutoff jean shorts, flip flops, and a white shirt and tie. David has a similar outfit but with black shorts. Trent is wearing pink pants, a blue shift, flip flops and his Tough Mudder headband. And one of the talks was on not judging other people. Too perfect.

We arrived home at midnight, exhausted, dirty, but happy. How could you not be happy after such a wonderful week? I am so grateful to have been able to go on this great adventure. I feel like I learned more about the nature of God and His mercies in the past week, than I have in the past six months. He answered our prayers a thousand times over. I’m sure you noticed the many instances of “miracle” hanging around this post. I’ve been trying lately to look for the little miracles that happen every day in my life. And it’s working. If you look for miracles, you will see them, and you will feel that God knows and loves you personally. It’s an amazing feeling.

My next adventure is HOME!!! In just a few short days I’ll be basking in the glory of the North Idaho sun, or maybe rain, but hopefully sun. The forecast says sun! I am SO excited, I can barely stand it. Our celebrations for the coming 4^th are sure to be glorious.

Sorry again for the novel. I hope I didn’t wear you out too much. I said there was a lot. In fact, this post is now longer than my IB History paper. But this was way more fun to write.