Mt St Helens (54) to Cannon Beach (57)

I took this on our way up a small mountain
thinking it was Mt St Helens. I was wrong,
Mt St Helens is to the left, about the same
distance away but it was a nice view anyway

If Homer had made mistakes previously, they were misdemeanours and a section of this journey could be classified as a felony!

The road to 101 should have been quite straight forward, however, Homer likes to take short cuts. And so it was today. We were travelling along highway 30 and for some unknown (to me) reason, he deemed it necessary to turn off. I foolishly followed instructions.

The road started off without a problem and led us through a small village with shops on either side. Soon after however, the road became narrower to a point that it resembled a very narrow country road, room enough for one car to drive and a car in the opposite direction to pull over to the side and wait.

Following another turn, the width reduced to even more. “This is not good” I kept repeating, firstly to myself then out loud. Homer was showing we only had another 5 km or so and then we needed to turn right, somewhere. If things weren’t bad enough, the bitumen road became gravel and the edges had been softened by all the recent rain.

There was now no possibility for two cars to pass – we were taking up the entire road. Gravel was turning to a combination of mud and gravel and I was now in “extreme” stress mode as was Grace. We came to a narrow drive way leading up to a rifle range in which a small 4-wheel drive car had reversed to get out of the way of the mammoth coming towards them.

As we neared, the driver got out of his car to talk to us. “Hope you’re not considering going any further in that” he stated. I weakly tried to explain it wasn’t my decision where to go, I was following the Tom Tom. Turns out that they had taken their 4-wheel drive down the road where we were headed and had just reversed almost one mile to use this narrow drive-way to make a U turn. The goat track we were now on became impassable further on as rocks and trees blocked the way entirely.

What to do?? With their assistance in guiding I tried to back the Sierra into the drive, but the edge on the bank opposite was very soft and fell away about 30 feet into a creek bed. There was simply no room to get around, despite about 30 minutes or so of trying and many attempts with various angles. Often, the back of the Sierra had been forced up against a bank – I even tried to get it at about 90° to the road and was going to unhitch, drive around it somehow and pull from the other side.

One of the people in the 4-wheel drive had walked up to the rifle range to see whether or not there was any room at the top. He returned to tell us there was a small car park and he thought it would be worth a try. The problem I had was to get it up the wet, steep and narrow dirt road – time to engage the 4-wheel drive for the first time. I reversed far enough down the goat track to attempt to climb up. The Sierra's wheels were on the edge of both sides of the driveway and as we rounded a bend, the wheels drove up the embankment for more than a foot. Many times all four of the Chev's wheels were slipping as they attempted to get traction.

This is about the width of the
muddy section of road with a
30' drop to the creek and soft
edges in which we were trying
to do a U turn with an almost
 19 metre long rig!

Needless to say, we got to the top and after about a 20-point turn managed to get the rig turned around. I thanked the men profoundly for their help and guidance and set off back down the drive. I have no idea of how many wheels were locked up as we slowly slid back down the drive, but I could sure see the creek in front of us and was trying to seek out the largest tree which, if needed would break our fall.

We successfully made it to the goat track and gingerly made our way back to the highway. Homer tried to divert us to another of his “specials” but I have lost of huge amount of confidence in his ability, not in the city but certainly on country roads. It’s a pity that no-one got a photo of our predicament, but we did get a couple of photos of a wider section of the narrow road on the way out.

When we finally arrived at the campground in Cannon Beach and were setting up, Meryla called out to say the electric motor that wound down the Sierra’s rear stabilisers wouldn’t work. I probably knocked it earlier I replied and went back to have a look. No motor – it had broken off completely and left only the casting to show me where it once was!

I suppose we were luck really, no other damage and although the U turn and diversion caused us to add more than 1 ½ hours to our trip, heaps of experience was gained. As much as I would like to think this episode or one similar will not occur again, the lessons learnt may come in handy further on in our travels.
Homer’s guidance has now caused me to refer to a printed map and seek out for myself whether or not to listen to his short-cuts or ignore them.

Onwards, south down 101 for the next few days.

Mt St Helens (52 – under 54)

Unfortunately, the drive to Mt St Helens was in unrelenting rain, and that was the expected forecast over the next couple of days. The highway south was fine and it was an easy drive; we were just hoping the Sierra was properly waterproofed and that our belongings weren’t going to be wet – turned out that everything was bone dry except the outside storage in the front, directly behind the Chev.

The campground in Castle Rock was a good place and our site was quite a narrow back-in with a lovely view. The weather gave us another great chance to catch up on schoolwork, even though it was a Sunday. Frankly, without the calendar on our clock we wouldn’t really know what day of the week it was and it doesn’t really matter. We travel when we’re ready and do as much schoolwork as we can both in the Chev and in the Sierra. The girls are a little behind, but not too much and thankfully have now fallen in to a routine of sorts.

Castle Rock is about 50 miles (80k) from Johnston Ridge Observatory, the best vantage point from which to see Mt St Helens. There’s a tourist information centre both at the observatory and at the beginning of the national park and each of them have a different exhibition, the former about the environment and the latter focuses on the mountain, eruption and volcanoes generally.

Monday brought lighter rain with a few breaks between, so we decided to drive to the nearest information centre to see what they had on display. As we drove there the sun came out and although the weather looked promising, we wondered whether or not we should try to get to the top as it was about 2.30 – perhaps there wasn’t time.

We paid our entrance fee and as we were still at the reception cashier, discussed with her our desire to see the top. She advised us to go straight there now, as they had had snow both on Mt St Helens and the road to get to the observatory last night, they were expecting a lot more tonight and during the day tomorrow. She returned our entrance fee and although I hadn’t brought my camera, Grace had hers and we were suitably dressed.

The road to the observatory winds and twists and although the height at the observation point is at 4,200 feet, we started going downhill for a way at the 3,000’ mark making us think twice about whether we’d taken an incorrect turn. After a couple of miles and a drop of several hundred feet, the road started up again so we persevered.

We could see plenty of snow ahead, but still couldn’t see Mt St Helens – the low cloud cover sure didn’t help either. Neither Rochelle nor Chantelle had seen “natural” snow before (we’ve been to Perisher where the girls saw the snow makers spraying the fine mist in the air to make snow) and they were excitedly chatting about their chance to see “real” snow and kept asking if what we were seeing was the real thing!

Mt St Helens... in the distance,
somewhere



Our arrival at the observatory was great. The girls wanted to run and jump in the snow and luckily, Meryla had brought her gloves. Chantelle pulled her long sleeves down to make gloves and poor Rochelle had to make do with bare hands. We walked to the building and almost as we arrived, it started snowing. Extra excitement as photos were taken of the girls trying to catch snowflakes in their mouth. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a decent view or photograph of the Mt St Helens due to the cloud cover, but knew it was there and attempted a few token shots.



Flattened trees from the eruption and
barren lands remain



It’s hard to believe that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the eruption. Signs of the mountain’s activity had been occurring since March that year when earthquakes measuring up to 4.1 shook the area and periodic bursts of steam and ash plumed from its crater. Weeks before the eruption the plumes ceased, but a bulge on the north face of the mountain was growing as much as 5 feet/day providing ominous signs of what was about to happen.



Note the mudflows in the foreground



On the morning of the eruption a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook Mt St Helens. At 8.32am on May 18th, 1980 the massive eruption took place and the north face of the mountain, already weakened and bulging from the pressure of the magma pushing upward gave way. Freed of the weight of the mountain containing it, the gases and magma burst out like champagne from a shaken bottle.

400 metres of peak collapsed or blew outwards and as a result, 62 square kilometres of valley was filled by a debris avalanche, 650 square kilometres of recreation, timber and private lands were damaged by the lateral blast and an estimated 150 million cubic metres of material was deposited directly by volcanic mudflows into the river channels - 57 people were killed.

The avalanche travelled approximately 24 kilometres downstream at a velocity exceeding 240 km/hr and left behind a deposit with an average thickness of 45 metres; at some places it was 180 metres thick! The heat and blast from the eruption travelled at an estimated 320 km/hr ripping over 10 million trees out of the ground like toothpicks and where the blast hadn’t torn the trees from the ground, the side of the tree facing the mountain was completely burnt.

We stayed till almost 5 o’clock and although the centre stayed open another hour, I felt it prudent to return back down as some of the sections of road were quite steep and windy and I didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught in black ice. The outside ambient temperature displayed by the Chev was reading 33°F so caution was the word as the roads were quite wet on the way up.

I drove very cautiously under Grace’s scrutiny and all went well. On our way home we stopped at Coldwater Lake which Rochelle and I explored for about 20 minutes – in fact we were so long the others, who waited not-so-patiently in the car thought we might have been lost. Following the eruption, the lake had been “re-located” 800 feet higher up the mountain due to all the sediment, fallen trees and ash that covered the area. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant very close to the campground and had a great dinner – it certainly helped us warm up.

That night they received a fall of over 8” on Mt St Helens and during the day on Tuesday, they were expecting another 7”. It rained all day at the campground and we were told by the staff that it was snowing at the observatory again. We didn’t take the opportunity to visit the lower observatory again and concentrated on schooling that day.

We woke on Wednesday to quite a heavy fog but were told that would burn off shortly and should be a lovely day. Sure enough, as we were preparing the rig to leave, the fog broke and by the time we were on the road towards Cannon Beach, it was a turning out to be a glorious day.

Looking back towards Mt St Helens as we were climbing another mountain on our way to the coast, we had the opportunity to take one last photo. A great way to remember our visit there.
Our disastrous trip to Cannon Beach, located on Highway 101 is the next blog.

Seattle (51)

By contrast to our selection of a campground in Vancouver, Seattle’s choice turned out to be the complete opposite. Instead of sodden grassy mounds, we had luckily chosen a quite small campground that turned out to be all asphalt and level. The wifi connection was available sitting in the RV and there was a heated, indoor pool and games room. The local shopping centre was a short walking distance away and the nearest Park and Ride station was only a 7 minute drive. As I mentioned in the Vancouver blog, it’s amazing how different you feel when everything comes together when you first arrive.

We sifted through the display of tourist brochures in the reception office and found quite a few things of interest - there seemed to be heaps to do: the Space Needle, a Duck Tour (a fleet of former World War 2 amphibious vehicles providing both a land and water tour), Music Expo/Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame building, an underground city tour, a mono rail system, and north of the city a tour through the Boeing factory where every 747, 777 and 787 ever built are being produced, plus more.

When we flew to Seattle to take our cruise to Alaska, we glimpsed a number of the above attractions as we passed them in a taxi en route to our hotel. Fortunately most of them are very close to each other so exploring would be quite easy.

However, our luck of travelling with good weather was coming to an end as the weather channel was forecasting rain and colder temperatures four days after our arrival. In fact, the maximum daily temps were soon to be about 13 to14° which was right on average for this time of the year. Accordingly, we selected a few outdoor venues to start with and, time (and schoolwork) permitting, would visit the indoor activities last.

The day after we arrived, we journeyed into the city via the 554 bus on our first excursion. During our brief visit the month before, we remembered seeing the Duck Tours leaving their depot from beside the Space Needle. That was chosen as our first adventure as we expected they would also point out other things to do along the way.

The nearest bus to the Duck tour dropped us at one end of the CBD - the Duck Tour is at the other but it was only a walk of about 1 ½ kilometres to get there. We decided to take a leisurely stroll there, down 2nd Avenue and explore the CBD by foot. A monorail system also ran above us on 2nd Avenue and we decided we’d try that one day as well. The road was not at all busy and there weren’t many people walking the streets, we surmised that was due to the time, about 11am and most people would have been indoors working.

We came to a glass blowing factory along the way and went in for a look. It was only small but interesting, particularly for the Lowther ladies as they’d never seen glass blowing before. The front of the factory had a shop with heaps of coloured glassware, most of it too fragile to travel in the RV. However, we settled on a solid, round piece of glass with sea anemones carefully crafted within. We then slowly continued all the way down 2nd till we arrived at the Duck Tour.

The Duck Tour was fantastic. Our driver/guide “Noah Lott” was full of energy, funny stories, Seattle history and many hat changes to suit various themes that we passed along the way. All the people on the duck we encouraged to join in the fun by waving hands and singing along with tunes like YMCA when we were in the middle of the business centre of the CBD. Then, off to the water for a cruise around the harbour and eventually back to their depot. People waved and yelled hello as we went past – great fun for 90 minutes and very worthwhile if you ever have the chance.

During our trip through the city, he mentioned all the things of interest to us plus a lot more. We learned that Starbucks was first started in Seattle and the original store is located beside Pike Place markets in the CBD. Although the address moved 6 years after it first started in 1971, they rebuilt the store in its current location and from the original design and materials.

The markets were worth a visit as well – they are similar to Flemington markets, however the prices are definitely geared for tourists, not bargain hunters. We didn’t buy any trinkets but did buy quite a lot of fruit and veggies, only to find out the day after the prices were cheaper in the local supermarket, and some of it by almost 40%! Oh well, live and learn...

However, I’ve transgressed, we visited Pike Place markets and Starbucks on the last day of our visit to the city – we ended up exploring the city over 3 days.

Following the Duck Tour, we went up the Space Needle to look at the views over Seattle from the observation deck. The top of the tower stands at 605 feet high and the observation deck is 520 feet above ground level, thus quite a bit shorter than Centrepoint Tower in Sydney, however the views from there are very good.

We decided to walk back along 4th Avenue to catch the bus home, just to see a different part of the city – frankly, we all need the exercise too! The walk back was good, but a little worrying for Grace as we passed some locals standing outside a pub along the way. Apparently the girls and Grace were getting lots of strange, scary looks, something I missed completely. Nevertheless, we made it back to the designated spot to catch the 5.18pm bus back to our Park and Ride at Eastgate, then home.

The following day we had allocated as a school day, nothing to write about other than the stress of trying to be their teacher and parent!

Our good weather was still held for the following day so off we went, back to the city again to see the Music Expo, Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. All of those are in the one building, a peculiarly shaped structure that we learnt from the Duck Tour was supposed to resemble a Jimi Hendrix guitar that had been smashed, something he became synonymous for doing to end his concerts.

We spent over four hours in the Music Expo and Hall of Fame sections alone! There was a heap to do, a wonderful interactive display. There were separate sound booths in which you could play a guitar, drums, and keyboard and sing karaoke as loudly and badly as you could without anyone hearing you!

They had laser controlled sound systems with multiple options that played various instruments as you waved you hand between the lasers to break the beams. Lots and lots of displays that detailed many different musicians that have become icons of their industry, complete with the outfits they wore and instruments they used. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to use flash photography so many of our photos are quite dark, however hopefully manage to show what it like inside.

As a result of time spent there, we didn’t move into the Science Fiction Museum till early afternoon. There they had many original costumes worn by stars from Star Trek, Lost in Space, ET, Planet of the Apes and many more. All in all, another entertaining and busy day, time once again just enough time to catch the 5.18 home, provided we either walk very briskly or catch the monorail.

Catch the monorail we did. And what a memorable event, not because the trip only went from one station to another (total journey) and not because it was our first monorail trip, but because both Chantelle and Rochelle got to blow the monorail’s horn before we started the trip. We ended up taking the very front seats in the front carriage and the driver was seated right beside the girls.

As we were about to start and he closed the doors, he leaned over to Rochelle and asked if she would like to blown the horn. He pointed to a button on his hand control, she leant over and pushed it and sure enough, the very loud train horn sounded. Much to our surprise, he then asked Chantelle to do the same and she did – two very excited girls thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the 4 minute journey.

Our third and following day in the city was to take the Underground Tour, to see both Starbucks and the Market Place and visit the Pacific Science Centre. The Underground Tour was our first stop and this is a tour of about 90 minutes. It was a fascinating journey through a small section of the city, 1 level below today’s street level and to help remind me of the details, I bought a book in the gift shop at the end of our tour and have just looked at it to assist me now....and, oh dear, I’ve chosen a book written in Spanish! Lovely pictures....

The Underground Tour took us around Pioneer Square above ground and also to a hidden Seattle that now lies underground. About 25 square blocks of Pioneer Square have hollow spaces under the sidewalks, thanks to peculiarities of the reconstruction after the great Seattle fire of 1889. Seattle at that time had been built using timber from huge, local forests that had trees as tall as 400 feet and a diameter of up to 8 feet.

It was a city that was essentially built on swampland and behind the swamp was a cliff about 200’ high. The poorer people lived up on the tops of the cliff and needed to walk down to work and climb back daily. The more affluent chose to build in the new city of Seattle and had timber from the cliff tops cut down and houses/shops built below.

Our guide told us many very humorous tales about the vagaries of life in the city then, in particular the sewage system. Naturally, living on a swamp it is impossible to create a fall in the sewer, a slope if you like to carry waste downhill. There was a system of sorts but most folk living there were reliant on the 20’ tides to carry all their waste out so sea – the problem arose of course when the tide came back in again. Apparently the daily paper at the time used to put the expected high and low tides for the day on the front page in order to assist those needing to do number 2s. Not many folk on the streets at the top of the tide as it started to ebb; most were indoors, reading the paper!

Someone then came up with a brilliant idea to build a sewage system above ground and commence it from the 200’ cliff behind the city. That would create a head of water pressure that could carry everyone’s waste out to sea. A boxed, four-sided wooden waste pipe was then built and was very successful for those living on the cliff! Their waste rocketed down the pipes and through the elevated system in Seattle, out to sea. Of course, the folk in the city needed to raise their toilets high enough to connect to the system, so most dunnies were in an area of the house well above floor level to allow them to connect.

The system was not without fault though. Due to the expanse of the city on the swampland, the pipes gradient was significantly reduced at ground level and the wooden channel structure only finished a short distance out to the sea. Apart from the constant leaks from overhead system, they still had to contend with tides.

The pressure of the incoming tides worked against the pressure being created from the 200’ drop from the cliff and great care needed to be exercised when flushing the toilet with an incoming tide. Apparently, with water pressure from both ends, if you were somewhere in the centre of the city and foolishly flushed the toilet at the wrong time, you were treated to a very unpleasant geyser, many feet high! One can’t imagine the smell and feel of the city at that time.

The Seattle fire: on the afternoon of June 6, 1889, John Back, an assistant in Victor Clairmont's woodworking shop at Front Street (now First Avenue) and Madison Avenue, was heating glue over a gasoline fire. Sometime after 2:15, the glue boiled over, caught fire and spread to the floors which were covered by wood chips and turpentine. He tried to put the fire out with water, but that only served to thin the turpentine and spread the fire further.

Seattle's water supply proved to be a major problem in fighting the fire. Hydrants were only located on every other street, the 'pipes' were small and many were made of hollowed out logs (several of which would burn in the fire). As more hoses were added to fight the fire, water pressure fell to the point that the hoses didn't work. Firemen tried to keep the fire from spreading further by pumping water from Elliott Bay but the tide was out, and the hoses were not long enough to reach the side of the building closest to the fire. To add insult to injury, crowds harassed the fire fighters as the water pressure fell. Many of the firemen gave up due to the lack of water and the crowd’s harassment.

The fire burned until 3:00 am. When it was done, the damage was enormous. 120 acres (25 city blocks) had been destroyed, about 119 buildings in all. Although the loss of human life was evidently low (no statistics were kept on that) it was estimated that 1 million rats were killed. Thousands of people were displaced and 5,000 men lost their jobs.

The city didn't take much time to mourn. Instead Seattle banded together, and to combat looting, two hundred special deputies were sworn in and the town placed under martial law for two weeks. A relief committee was formed to handle the charitable donations that were being sent from all over the country. Tacoma, a city about 40 miles south and no longer a rival, but an ally in the time of need, raised $20,000 and sent up a relief committee to help.

Within a month of the fire over 100 businesses were operating out of tents. Instead of relocating, most businesses decided to rebuild where they had been, and rebuilding began almost immediately. Wooden buildings were banned in the burned out district, to be replaced by brick.

The original I beams are still above
new I beams fitted for additional
support

At the same time, it was decided that streets should be raised up to 22 feet in places to allow for proper services including sewage systems to be built underground and to help level the hilly city. However, most businessmen couldn’t wait the expected number of years it was going to take to raise the height of the city by carving out some of the cliff areas.

Hence, a plan to divide the then city ground level into grids was devised. The new ground level was to be at the height of these walls, essentially at the ceiling of the ground floor. They built walls in blocks and used soil and rocks from the cliff to fill many of these for strength. These cavities also provided an area for the city in which to dispose of the charred remains of the former buildings. Not all of these cavities were filled as it was decided many wanted to use these areas for storage.

Businessmen were able to construct their new buildings knowing that the current ground level would eventually become their basement. Within a year, 465 buildings had been built, most of the reconstruction was complete and the businesses had reopened. Thus, we were able to see what used to be Seattle’s ground level, complete with pavements during our Underground Tour.

Following the tour we walked to Pike Place to find the original Starbucks. It was a very small shop-front, very unassuming indeed. No area inside to sit inside and soak up the atmosphere of what has turned out to be a global success, just a place that sold coffee beans. A street busker and parked cars immediately in front of the building, about 1 ½ metres from the front door made it difficult to take a photo and the only recognition of its fame was a plaque inside.

The last place for us to explore was the Pacific Science Center located near the Space Needle and a place that was highly recommended by the Duck Tour guide. It’s a building full of interactive displays for children, both young and old! There were bodyworks machines for strength, flexibility, machines that changed your body and face shape (by image, not physically), planetarium, tide pool, balance games of all types, dinosaurs to be brought alive, an insect village, butterfly farm – absolutely full of entertainment for the young and young at heart. A $3million Harry Potter exhibit was to open in a large section of the building the day we planned to leave Seattle, so we unfortunately missed that.

We stayed there till it closed at 5pm, caught the monorail to our city bus stop and waited for the next bus at 5.51. Our luck of weather had finally come to an end and we finally received liquid sunshine. We were able to take shelter though in a coffee shop adjacent to the bus stop and waited in warmth and comfort, complete with a hot chocolate in hand.

Friday was an allocated school day and thanks to our planning and accurate weather forecast, was spent in the Sierra looking at the gloomy weather outside.

On Saturday we drove north to the Boeing factory to look at their “Future of Flight” exhibition. It started with a 90 minute tour of their aircraft building factories/warehouses/hangers. There were five in all although our tour only went inside three, but they were huge, 40 hectares of floor space! From the observation decks of each building we looked at them building 747s, 777s and their newest plane, the Dreamliner 787s.

Quite a number of the planes were on the hanger floors in various stages of construction, however we weren’t allowed to take our cameras on the tour, hence no photos. There was an area in the main visitors centre that had small cut aways and models of engines and sections of plane that enabled us to take a few photos to remind us of our visit.

It was an interesting tour and a worthwhile visit, but time for this epilogue about Seattle to finish and us to head off on Sunday to Mt St Helens RV park campground, 50 miles from Mt St Helens, but the nearest place we could stay.

Vancouver (50) to Seattle (51)

We selected Sunday to travel because we expected the traffic to be quite minimal, however were surprised by the numbers of cars heading towards the USA. Following our concerns about taking fruit and vegetables across the border when heading north, we took less fruit but took a chance on vegetables as Grace found an Asian store selling all types of leafy, green veggies.

Quite a long queue greeted us at the road block for passport control and it took us almost 45 minutes to reach the guard at the booth. He turned out to be a right pompous person, nothing like the friendly greeting we received from the Canadian border guard on our way north.

"Give me your passports. Why are you coming to the USA? How long will you be here? Where are you going? Who owns the truck and 5th wheeler? What!!! You bought that just to travel round the USA for 1 year!!! Your visas expire in February and you must leave the USA before then." All this plus more was put to us in a very gruff and bombastic way, not at all in a light inquisitive manner.

However, I then blundered!! I told him we needed to be back in Canada by early April and that we were going to cross the border into Mexico while we were in San Diego to "renew" or "refresh" our B1/B2 visa which is valid for 5 years, but only in 6 month blocks.

"You are going to do what? be bellowed with indignation. You are violating the rights of the visa. You are not allowed to travel across the border for a day, then return to have a new visa issued, it must be a meaningful trip!!" I was going to tell him that any trip we were taking where we'd not been before was meaningful, however I stayed quiet. He produced a self-adhesive orange sticker, wrote something on it and stuck it to the outside of our windscreen.

"You must come inside for further questioning! Park your rig around the other side of the building". With that he dismissed us and we did as told, parked on the other side. When we went inside the building, there were four other people already seated there, waiting for how long I wondered? To one side there was an open counter with lots of tables at which sat a few people in uniform, glancing at us from time to time but not making any approach. No sign of our combatant either, probably still outside making life difficult for others.

However, after nearly 30 minutes of us all sitting there, a woman walked in the same door in which we had entered and she was holding her orange sticker from the windscreen. She walked up to the counter, summonsed a person and was dealt with immediately. Almost as one, the others in the room realised we needed that orange sticker to be served - why weren't we told? We all walked out together and retrieved "said sticker" and returned to form a queue of three.

As we were last in, we waited our turn and when finally at the desk was asked why we received the sticker. I told a much friendlier chap and he said "take a seat, he will need to talk to you". So we were once again going to face our combatant. After another 15 minutes or so (by now over an hour waiting) he walked in and called me over.

"Here are your passports and you are free to stay in the USA till Feb 19th when your visas expire. Prior to that date, you must leave the USA and return to your country of residence!" I remember that instruction verbatim as I thought it was none of his business where we went after we left the USA. I believe we can go anywhere we choose and that our passport will allow - I was going to say something inappropriate but thought better of it and simply turned and walked outside with the family.

Being astute, you may have picked up just the tiniest of hints that I'm still peeved about the incident, till now! Now, I've finally got all that nonsense off my chest, time to move forward.

The rest of the drive to Seattle was straight forward, but much of it is now a with grey cloud settled over my head following the encounter with Mr Personality…..stop it! Time to put my mind towards writing a new blog about Seattle. By the way, once again we weren't queried about fruit and veggies.

Vancouver (45-50)

Vancouver's setting is beautiful and reminded me very much of a mix between Sydney and a very large version of Hobart with the mountain behind the city. Vancouver is built on and around water with many, many islands and I've been told you can be sitting on a beach getting a suntan while looking up at Grouse Mountain covered with snow.

Frankly, I've seen Mt Wellington in Hobart covered with snow and can't imagine what it would be like to strip down to swimmers on a beach whilst looking at the view. I suppose if I was wearing an 8mm thick wetsuit under my swimmers....

The comparison between the settings of Hobart and Vancouver, other than size is interesting.

Vancouver                                                           Hobart
Grouse Mountain – 1230 metres                            Mt Wellington – 1270 metres
About 15 mins from the city                                   About 15 mins from the city
Latitude = 49° N                                                     Latitude = 42° S
Setting-Salish Sea, Burrard Inlet, Georgia Straits    River Derwent
Population Vancouver Regional~2.6 Million           Woops – stop here

Tassie’s total population is about 500,000 so the scale is what I first meant about Hobart being a much smaller version - Grouse Mountain also has 26 ski runs and 4 chairlifts.

I mentioned in the Kelowna blog about selecting a campground as close to the city of Vancouver as possible, without the need to negotiate the city centre with the full rig. In hindsight, we would have been better not to have selected that particular campsite. The chosen campground turned out to be nowhere near as good as we’d expected after reading their description of their park.

It had a lot of permanent tenants who weren’t approaching retirement (I know appearances are deceiving however, their looks and abodes caused us to lock everything and even put semi-important items into both our safes), water-sodden grass sites about as level as my elbow, road construction beside the campground that had been ongoing since January this year and turned out to be 24/7, no internet, a 30 amp connection that tripped for no apparent reason even in dead of night (I leapt out of bed around 2.15 am one day, alarmed that someone might have deliberately turned off our power and was waiting for me as I exited the van to reset the breaker or reconnect power) etc.

Naturally, we saw none of the above when booking at the nice looking reception office at the campground entrance and thus paid for a 7 night stay. I chastised myself for the next six nights, well, 7 really!! I thought about moving but read their non-negotiable campground rules – once connected to their services, no refunds at all and that would have caused us to throw away over $350. Unfortunately, that set the scene for us and I discussed that feeling with Grace the next morning at breakfast. It’s the old “first impression” thing that put us on alert from the moment we arrived.

The following day we wanted to explore the local shopping centre to buy groceries and seek out an internet café. There was a large Walmart complex only about 15 minutes away with many shops, sort of like a Westpoint shopping centre in Sydney. To our surprise there wasn’t an internet café, however, there was a food court with many outlets and a Starbucks (with no seating inside) that offered limited wifi connections in the common seating area in the mall.

If you were able to get a table in the right location you could get a “poor to good” signal at best. I carried the laptop inside Starbucks one day and found an excellent signal there. The problem I faced was no seating and no area to rest the laptop, so I bought a coffee and stood back from the counter trying to balance both the laptop and coffee at the same time. A little dangerous but very effective – I uploaded about 170 photos of Yellowstone and Mammoth Springs to the slideshow on the blog before my battery expired. I did try again following that success, but failed to receive that same signal strength or continuity again. As the signal strength improved, it dropped out, time and again – very frustrating indeed.

On the way to the shopping mall we noticed a Chevrolet dealer, and as we had already driven just over 5000 miles (8215 kms to be exact), decided to book a service. It was a relatively straight forward service involving an oil and filter change, brake inspection, etc. However, I was surprised at how quick and cheap the service was – they said I could wait and they would take about 45 minutes at a total cost of $74.00. I thought there would be a catch of some sort but the keys were handed back, service done, computer reset, in that time and for that amount!

We’d read about Grouse Mountain which sits on the north side of Vancouver so set out about finding our way to the city via public transport and discovered they have a great Sky Train system – the track runs above road level. The nearest Park and Ride station beside a train stop was only about 20 minutes drive from the campground, so off we went on Wednesday, another beautiful sunny day.

The Sky Train was very good and it took us about 40 minutes to arrive in the city. The last stop was called Waterfont and as the name implies, the train station was within the same building that had boats departing for various locations near and around Vancouver. The passenger ferry we needed to catch was the Seabus and this crossed Burrard Inlet to North Vancouver.

Once on the ferry and travelling towards Lonsdale Quay (the ferry terminal on the north shore), there are great views back over Vancouver’s city centre. It’s only a trip of about 15 minutes and once at the quay, you find a very efficient bus terminal with 8 different buses going to various destinations, all timed to coincide with the ferry's arrival. Ours was in Bay number 8 and that took us to a gondola station located at the base of Grouse Mountain.

From memory the gondola ride wasn’t too cheap, about $140 or so but a necessity if you wish to get to the top to see the views. So pay we did and the views on the ride up were terrific. Despite some white haze in the distance the day was quite clear and you could see snow capped mountains far off towards the horizon, the gondola driver said about 100 kilometres away.

When at the gondola’s top station you can find a couple of gift shops, a “Theatre in the Sky”, a restaurant, a café and surprisingly (to us), a chair lift to the summit that’s included in the price of the gondola ride. The theatre was showing 2 films, a documentary about 2 young, orphaned grizzly bears that were reared about 10 years ago in an attempt to save them, and another on the history of Grouse Mountain.

We watched both films and are very pleased we did because the two, now 10 year old grizzly bears live nearby to the building in which we were sitting and are one of the special features of Grouse Mountain. Outside we went and saw quite a crowd of people surrounding a viewing platform about 200 metres from where we were. No doubt, that was the location of the grizzlies, however about an equal distance to the left was the base station for the chair lift, and that had no people waiting in queue.

Each of the chairs on the lift will only carry four people, so we broke into two groups – Meryla went with me and Grace, Chantelle and Rochelle took a chair in front of us. I could see Grace hanging on very tightly to the frame of the chair lift and so was I! About half way up when there was a drop of 40 metres or so, I heard Grace getting a little agitated with the girls and found out later Rochelle was trying to rock the chair lift – frankly, I would have been the same because I’m not really good with heights either.

The top of the mountain has a walking path up to a wind powered generator, and almost at the top of the generator’s mast, there’s a viewing pod with 360° views and a section of glass floor to allow you to gaze past your feet at the ground, some 60 metres below.

They’ve named it “The Eye of the Wind” and their caption is “Stand inside and be blown away”. I have to say, if I was to go there and stand on the glass floor, there’d be more wind inside the pod than outside, however, when re-reading their slogan, perhaps that’s what they mean?

Needless to say, we didn’t partake in that adventure. I did offer to take photos of anyone else in the family who wanted to venture up there, and there was only one taker, Rochelle of course! Unfortunately, no one would go with her so she missed out.

There were a number of exciting and adventurous sporting opportunities offered when at the top. A paragliding take off point was prominent with a warning to walkers not to go beyond a certain marked place, as the drop needed for the gliders dropped away very quickly. No-one was there today, perhaps because it was a week day but they would have been great to watch.

Another opportunity offered was zip lines, deep gorges traversed by steel cables, onto which is attached a pulley complete with webbing as your seat. You needed to wear a helmet, but if I was required to do that, I’d probably need a nappy as well! Apparently you paid at the top main gondola kiosk area for these zip lines thrills and there were four or five different zip line trips that came as a package.

They appeared to be well organised and safe as instructors were there guiding you at each end of the zip line. We watched and chatted to one of the instructors, a girl from Homebush in Sydney and she absolutely loved her job. She sent her last person down, who very gingerly leant back following instructions and was then released – courtesy of Newton’s Law, achieving what seemed to be a ridiculous speed and looking more like a troubled spider on her back with arms and legs spread, hopefully about to remember how to slow down gracefully at the end.

Our instructor was cleared by someone on a walkie talkie and bade farewell, clipped on to the line and made an enormous leap complete with a long “Yeeehaaaa” as she rocketed down the line, bent so far back that she was in a U shape holding her ankles and spinning like a top. Perhaps impressive for some, but utterly terrifying for me!

We strolled back down to the grizzlies where the number of people had diminished, watched them playing in the water for a while and then decided it was time to head back to the Sierra. It had been another long and interesting day by the time we arrived home, as we had travelled by car, foot, skytrain, boat, bus, gondola, chairlift, foot and then repeated the entire sequence in reverse.

The balance of our time in Vancouver was spent with schoolwork and travelling to and from the local mall in an attempt to post some of these blogs, to retrieve and respond to emails, for Grace to upload photos to Facebook and for Meryla to do schoolwork – most of which were attempts in vain to connect.

Friday's weather looked good as well so we headed back into the city to try to get to Stanley Park, a large and interesting looking area very close to the city centre. As we were approaching the park, we walked by an area where lots of seaplanes were active, mainly taking tourists out for a look over the city. Right beside that was a push bike rental shop and, as bad as it sounds, I'd never taught Rochelle to ride unassisted on a 2 wheeler.

So, that's what we did over the next 2 hours - until both my back couldn't take any more bending and, by good fortune (for me), the bike chain came off. We hired a bike for Chantelle as well and Meryla enjoyed moving around various seats in an attempt to stay in the sun and read another book (sorry Lisa - there's a competition between Lisa and Meryla to see how many books they can read in a given time). Rochelle quickly found her balance but as the concrete path was very busy, we stayed on the more difficult, but softer wet grass. We didn't make it to Stanley Park, and it didn't matter!

Grace wanted to meet with Therency, a lady she went to school with, who now lived in Vancouver and whom she hadn't seen for 19 years. They had been communicating for quite a while and Friday evening was the time set and agreed. We met at Granville Island and what a fabulous place that turned out to be. Lots of small roads with equally quaint shops selling all types of "homemade" wares - the sort of place you could spend half a day or more walking about and exploring. Therency was lovely and we all had an early dinner in a hotel on the water's edge beside a small marina, before trecking back home in the dark.

All in all, other than a number of highlights we were quite disappointed with our time in Vancouver, not because it wasn’t beautiful, it certainly is, it was just a series of incidents that left us feeling flat. The signs at the Park and Ride advised us not to leave valuables in the car as thieves were active. So, somewhat apprehensively we had left the locked Sierra, taken all valuables from our locked car and headed for the city.

We were very surprised at the number of homeless or poor people (or people needing money for drugs) who approached us for money as we walked about the city, particularly near the Waterfront station. Almost as soon as we stepped off the Sky train we were asked for money and he turned out to be the first of about 8 through the day.

We'd like to return again one day, perhaps with "new eyes" to see if we can experience "another" Vancouver than we saw this time. Maybe it's just that we've been travelling for almost 2 months and we are burning the candle at both ends, maybe not? To make matters worse, unexplicably Grace's SD card on her camera lost all of her photos from Grouse Mountain and quite a number of other shots. However, everything turned out well because nothing was stolen, nothing was broken and we didn’t get hurt.

We were due to leave on Sunday and on Saturday morning the entire park lost power. After about three hours we made a decision to leave a day early and started to pack just as the power returned. As our 7th night was free, we stayed this night and left on Sunday morning to travel across the border to Seattle.