Roadtrip - Day 1
Well it didn't take long before we got to put the iPod (and the iTrip FM transmitter) to good use on our road trip down to see Kerstie and Thom in Ashland, Oregon. I had a bit of time off from work and it was the last break that Col had before Uni started so what better way to spend two weeks than exploring the Pacific Northwest Coast and catching up with the Kneelands?
We spent a night at the cabin in Adam's Lake before heading south through Kamloops towards the dreaded border crossing. Of course being a Canadian, Col has never had any problems crossing in the States before but since I had an Aussie passport, we had to park the car and go into the Customs office, fill out a visa waiver form and hand over our first US cash payment of the trip.
I've got to say we were lucky with the crossing not being too busy and we got through OK, but I sure hope the roads on the other major crossing a bit further west nearer to Vancouver were a little more, well a little more like a major road. As soon as we were in the US we found ourselves on some pretty narrow country roads driving through cornfield after cornfield as the rain started pelting down. Not too sure that we were even on the right track we just tried to keep heading west where the map said that the interstate I-5 was which was our arterial route south.
After passing through some very shady looking areas and broken down little towns we eventually found the I-5 and joined the much faster traffic flow, two lanes at last! We wanted to make some time through Washington and get past Seattle if possible and after the first few hours of torrential rain and slippery driving conditions all of our worst stereotypes of Seattle and Washington being a grey rainy hellhole were confirmed. At times, there was so much rain dumping down that it made no difference whether the wipers were on or not, and we were noticing a lot of cars pulling over to the side of the road to let the worst of it pass. "Must be tourists" we thought, "we're used to bad conditions, we'll just push on". Lucky the I-5 is a 2 or 3 lane divided highway most of the way down through Bellingham to Seattle and Tacoma and then Olympia. Seattle for us was just an excuse for the traffic to pile up as we hit it right at rush hour and it didn't let up until we were well past Tacoma, and we were pretty happy about the commuter lane (for two or more people in the vehicle) that we shamelessly drove most of the Seattle bypass in.
We stopped off in Olympia for a bite to eat and ended up having a pretty tasty Thai meal (of all things) in the state capital of Washington, but it was too rainy and cold still to do any exploring of the grounds of the capital building which looked pretty impressive. Onward ever onward that day and we finally hit the coast at around 8 o'clock. Dark, still in the driving rain, now on narrow twisty secondary roads and tired, we were getting towards the end of our rope and finally managed to get to the coast and Highway 101 which was to take us all the way down the coast of three states before we got to Ashland. We pulled up for petrol and could not for the life of us get the pump to work. dodgy guys in Chevy Camaros pulled up alongside us, everyone spoke with the weirdest accents, we were exhausted and it was all just getting a bit too much. We discovered that in Washington you have to pay first (or leave your card with them) before they'll turn the pumps on and so we just filled the tank up at what turned out to be a pretty expensive 210c/Gal. Of course coming from Canada where gas is priced in c/L we had no idea what we were paying but at that point it really didn't make much of a difference. All we wanted was for the van not to run out of gas and to find somewhere to stop for the night. About 30 more dark, twisty and slippery kilometers south we stumbled into a campsite out on a peninsula called Bay Center. We pretty much just pulled in, chucked everything in the front seat, rolled the mattress out in the back and fell into an exhausted pile in the back.
Imagine our surprise in the morning to wake up and find that we'd actually happened across a really beautiful little camping spot on the coast and that we had it all to ourselves!
First night camping in the van...
The Pacific Ocean...
We had a little chat with the campground manager the next morning and he was more than a little surprised to see us "With the huge storm last night and the price of gas!" I guess those people pulling off to the side may have been Seattle natives after all....
All I can say is, thankfully we had the iPod with all our music on it to keep our spirits up and that we were very lucky to find the perfect little campground at the end of it all.
We spent a night at the cabin in Adam's Lake before heading south through Kamloops towards the dreaded border crossing. Of course being a Canadian, Col has never had any problems crossing in the States before but since I had an Aussie passport, we had to park the car and go into the Customs office, fill out a visa waiver form and hand over our first US cash payment of the trip.
I've got to say we were lucky with the crossing not being too busy and we got through OK, but I sure hope the roads on the other major crossing a bit further west nearer to Vancouver were a little more, well a little more like a major road. As soon as we were in the US we found ourselves on some pretty narrow country roads driving through cornfield after cornfield as the rain started pelting down. Not too sure that we were even on the right track we just tried to keep heading west where the map said that the interstate I-5 was which was our arterial route south.
After passing through some very shady looking areas and broken down little towns we eventually found the I-5 and joined the much faster traffic flow, two lanes at last! We wanted to make some time through Washington and get past Seattle if possible and after the first few hours of torrential rain and slippery driving conditions all of our worst stereotypes of Seattle and Washington being a grey rainy hellhole were confirmed. At times, there was so much rain dumping down that it made no difference whether the wipers were on or not, and we were noticing a lot of cars pulling over to the side of the road to let the worst of it pass. "Must be tourists" we thought, "we're used to bad conditions, we'll just push on". Lucky the I-5 is a 2 or 3 lane divided highway most of the way down through Bellingham to Seattle and Tacoma and then Olympia. Seattle for us was just an excuse for the traffic to pile up as we hit it right at rush hour and it didn't let up until we were well past Tacoma, and we were pretty happy about the commuter lane (for two or more people in the vehicle) that we shamelessly drove most of the Seattle bypass in.
We stopped off in Olympia for a bite to eat and ended up having a pretty tasty Thai meal (of all things) in the state capital of Washington, but it was too rainy and cold still to do any exploring of the grounds of the capital building which looked pretty impressive. Onward ever onward that day and we finally hit the coast at around 8 o'clock. Dark, still in the driving rain, now on narrow twisty secondary roads and tired, we were getting towards the end of our rope and finally managed to get to the coast and Highway 101 which was to take us all the way down the coast of three states before we got to Ashland. We pulled up for petrol and could not for the life of us get the pump to work. dodgy guys in Chevy Camaros pulled up alongside us, everyone spoke with the weirdest accents, we were exhausted and it was all just getting a bit too much. We discovered that in Washington you have to pay first (or leave your card with them) before they'll turn the pumps on and so we just filled the tank up at what turned out to be a pretty expensive 210c/Gal. Of course coming from Canada where gas is priced in c/L we had no idea what we were paying but at that point it really didn't make much of a difference. All we wanted was for the van not to run out of gas and to find somewhere to stop for the night. About 30 more dark, twisty and slippery kilometers south we stumbled into a campsite out on a peninsula called Bay Center. We pretty much just pulled in, chucked everything in the front seat, rolled the mattress out in the back and fell into an exhausted pile in the back.
Imagine our surprise in the morning to wake up and find that we'd actually happened across a really beautiful little camping spot on the coast and that we had it all to ourselves!
First night camping in the van...
The Pacific Ocean...
We had a little chat with the campground manager the next morning and he was more than a little surprised to see us "With the huge storm last night and the price of gas!" I guess those people pulling off to the side may have been Seattle natives after all....
All I can say is, thankfully we had the iPod with all our music on it to keep our spirits up and that we were very lucky to find the perfect little campground at the end of it all.
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