Day 2 ended up being a wash out from a ride perspective considering the deluge of rain that engulfed the area. The St Helens ride would have to wait for another day. We had places to go and things to do!
We worked our way over to I-5 and then headed due north in an attempt to make the Canadian border. Unfortunately the Tacoma traffic gods were upset, which is probably why it kept raining as they wreaked havoc on I-5 Tacoma traffic. I-5 was stop-and-go for several miles which slowed our progress down significantly. We finally made it through the bottleneck of Tacoma only to be met with the next bottleneck of Seattle.. To add a little extra spice, we were in the thick of Seattle traffic when the gaslight went on, despite the wifer’s earlier comments about needing to fill up soon. The plan was to try and get through Seattle and gas up in a less populous area. The thought of having to find gas while hauling a trailer in a busy city was not my idea of fun. However the road trip would not be a road trip without a little stress, and as luck would have it, we needed to gas up in the middle of downtown Seattle. Suffice it to say, it was a wee bit stressful driving the trailer in skinny city lanes with cars buzzing inches away from us on either side. I was having nightmare visions of running out of gas before being able to gas up, but fortunately we were able to find a gas station in the nick of time to fill the Titan’s appetite. Soon enough we were making our way through traffic to get back on the freeway and resume our roadtrip north. Between the traffic slowdown and the running (almost) out of gas adventure we added on a couple of extra hours to our trip which meant that Canada was on hold for another day as we tried to avoid yet another traffic jam during what would have been rush hour. We decided to stop in Bellingham at the Larabee State Park and spend the night and get an early start the following morning while avoiding Vancouver rush hour traffic.
The state park was very scenic, although a bit of a buzzkill on the camping front. The campsites were very close together and overpriced. The combination of close campsites and the upcoming labor day weekend made for a full house. With a full house like that, you can count on people being people and not being the best camp neighbors, with the exception of the guy walking his cat on a leash. Fortunately we were there for just one night and our trip was just in its beginning stages so we were able to laugh off the barking dogs, loud neighbors and trains running close by.
The big excitement was that this was Moby and Otis’ inaugural trip to the ocean. We took the trail down to the beach and stopped for the obligatory photo opps along the rugged coastline. We were able to find a trail down to a small beach although there was not much sand to speak of. The dogs immediately made their way to the water where Otis jumped back in alarm at the little bathtub sized waves. In contrast, Moby took to the water and pawed at the seaweed as he ran up the shore in excitement, thinking that the waves were his playmates. Otis kept cowering back as Moby pawed at the ocean. After about an hour we headed back up to the campsite and had to pull Moby away from his newfound love of the ocean. He begrudgingly followed us up the trail, albeit slowly and with sad puppydog eyes. We promised him that we would take him back the next morning for his next dose of the water.
In the morning Erin took the dogs down to the beach again
and I stayed behind to ready the trailer for departure. Soon enough we were pulling out of Larabee
State Park and back on the road.
We filled up for gas so we would not pay a Canadian surcharge on fuel
before we crossed the border. This
leads us back to the beginning of the blog entry where I sat in the car at the
border with border patrol wondering whether or not our trailer full of food
would get inspected and subsequently confiscated. I had visions of being added to the Canadian border
equivalent of the no-fly zone, but fortunately they let us through without any
incident. I counted my blessings
(namely the wifer) as we travelled north to our destination of Squamish.
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