The day had finally arrived. A trip that has been planned for 18 months was about to begin. On Saturday 28th May, we caught the ferry from Seattle to Vashon Island to meet up with Marie & Eric, companions on our 2 month Alaska trek. Marie & her primary school friend Jan met us at the ferry (access to the island is only from air or ferry) and drove us to Jan & Bill's vineyard property where Bill produces the only local wine sold with the Vashon Island label. His Pinot Noir sells for $50 in local shops. Our bedroom and bathroom was downstairs, hosts Jan & Bill had their bedroom/bathroom on the main level, and Eric & Marie had their bedroom/bathroom upstairs. An amazing home, converted from a simple A frame, mainly designed by Bill himself and with beautiful views over Puget Sound and their winery backyard. Our hosts catered for a dinner feast that included neighbours Amy (aussie girl from Noosa area) and her American husband Sean and 3 sons, and 3 other school girlfriends of Eric & Marie – one of the friends had flown in from Rwanda where she works with USAid and another of the girlfriends had her son, daughter and their spouses & children with them. As we were taking photos in the back yard, a bald eagle was soaring overhead. Amy then told us how an eagle had picked up and carried off one of her laying hens the week before.
This morning, Sunday, is the first day of our journey. The 4 of us drove off in Marie & Eric’s truck pulling their caravan/trailer, and drove onto the 8.40am ferry. Then there was a 20 mins drive to our next stop - our RV park - where we jumped in our RV and followed our friends north towards the Canada border. Shortly after midday we were hooked up at our lovely Canadian RV Park in Vancouver.
All our careful research on preparations for the Canada border crossing were in vain – we had identified that potatoes were an issue so didn’t buy any in our last grocery shop, and we knew we could only bring in 1.1 litres of wine each, so we exhausted our stocks in time for the crossing. We had ensured that we had our RV ownership and registration papers handy, as well as the special insurance card we had to get from our US insurance company to cover us whilst in Canada. It doesn't cost anything, but you need the bit of paper, otherwise you might find your insurance may be null & void.
It turns out that after checking our passports and RV licence plate, we were asked the obligatory questions such as how long are you staying and are you carrying any items for defending yourself such as guns, pepper spray etc. We don't carry anything like that, so we were waved through. Darn - we could have bought in our cask of wine after all. We were only in the queue for about 5 mins.
Once we had settled into our campground, the weather was so glorious that we prepared our lunch and the 4 of us sat outside under the shade of the trees, ate our lunch and spent some time perusing the tourist brochures. We then spent some time wandering in the RV park gardens and admiring the beautiful flowers. There was a gazebo draped with flowering lilacs, and azaleas and rhododendrons were flowering spectacularly in all different colours.
We ended our first day by driving to the nearby seaside town of Crescent Beach, walking along the edge of the sand, dining on fresh fish & chips overlooking the water, and finishing with an icecream as we walked back along the beach. It was about 7.30pm and although the sun had not set, it was starting to get cold. Time to call it quits for our first day. I am conscious a few of my readers are planning to do this Alaskan trip next year, so I will endeavour to provide as much information as I can. So follow along with our trip, and I hope you enjoy the ride...
Making memories! Looks like y'all had an awesome time! I think Alaskan Adventure are awesome!
ReplyDeleteHi Trish, we are following your blog with interest, I thought we were having it cold but you look a lot colder than us.
ReplyDeleteWe have enjoyed a beuitiful day at Yosemite with perfect weather and such terrific scenery it will be hard to describe.
All the best Tom & Betty