Family, Suspicious Canadians, and Signs Everywhere

"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving - we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Coordinates: 50.8108099,-121.3233237

We’re sitting in Prince Rupert, Canada, gazing out at the strait where a white mist is falling over the pine-clad islands, lit from behind with a ghostly, fiery sunset. Dusk birds that I only hear in Alaska and Canada are singing on the back deck of the hotel, and the water is icy blue and gold. I realize our car has outpaced the blog, but such a peaceful scene did not come easily, and a Jeep Cherokee is not as wonderful as the Star to write in. So how did we come to this wild, idyllic spot, waiting for our ferry to come in?

Well, we’ll try to catch up the log from Day 2 (Thursday), when we drove through mountainous Montana to reach the wonderful homefires of Bryan and Joannie Crabtree, in Post Falls, Idaho. Bryan is the Captain’s cousin, looks like (and is paid in December to dress up as) Santa Claus, and is generally described as Dad’s twin, even though they look nothing alike. Joanie has a million plants, two Golden Retrievers, a striped cat and lots of love and grub for wanderers like us.

To make the night perfect, Bryan’s son Ryan and his kids Aidan, Dallen, Bella and Olivia were there, which we hadn’t seen in fifteen years! Ryan and crew were just as awesome as we remembered, and Aidan whipped us at UNO, even though we all laughed at the different rules we played just by growing up in different states. It was wonderfully chatting with our cousins and seeing all the

kids grown up so much with such unique personalities. (See more fam pictures below)

After a relaxing night’s sleep at the Crabtrees’ abode, we woke up to brave the border. Have you ever

wondered what it looks between Idaho and Canada? Well it is a lot of rolling wheat fields and beautiful farms.
As for the border, truthfully, this Skipper was kind of dreading it (as was the rest of the crew). And our uneasy premonitions were not proven wrong.

We pulled up to the border, digging madly in the back of the Jeep for my phone to turn it off so we wouldn’t get charged international rates. As soon as we drew near to the border attendant window, she barked, “Ma’am what are you doing?” Alyssa and I blinked. “Er, looking for our phone?” We got glared at. “Well, look later ma’am. That makes me very nervous. Looked like you were rifling around for a handgun.” That, ladies and gentleman, was the general attitude of the austere Canadians guarding our northern border. Ten minutes later, the whole crew were twiddling our thumbs in the border office, watching out the window while an equally stern looking lady searched (with gloves) our Jeep and junky trailer. Truthfully, we felt sorry for her as she hauled all our boulder-heavy backpacks out of the back and dug through our lunches. After the sixth bag and third roast-beef sandwich, she marched back in and requested help letting the back down on the trailer, to Dad’s visible dismay (the trailer was absolutely covered in ropes to keep it from flapping).

Thankfully, the Captain was nicely able to convince her we weren’t trafficking firearms, only lunchmeat and too many library books. After a peek under the tarp, she decided Canada would have to take its chances with us, and let us go through, though she was much nicer about it and almost apologetic.

But it was worth it. As we pulled away from the border office, the landscape quickly changed into great, craggy mountains and rolling fields of grapes and apple orchards. And as for the wineries, we passed dozens in this “land of the signs”, along with hundreds of colorful, quirky signs (see more pic below) proclaiming everything from roast beef to ambrosia stands. We never forgot we were in Canada, since every third farmhouse touted the vibrant, maple-leaf Canadian flag.

It was green, verdant and breathtaking and a very long drive to Cache Creek, a quaint little community of Canadians. Waiting there for us was a 2 bedroom suite, which sounds a lot more glamorous than it was but was very needed because we don’t travel light (as you might have guessed) and were ready to spread out.

After getting over the border we breathed a sigh of relief and proceed to go through many vineyards. I never knew there were so many! This was also “land of the signs”. We saw so many unique and interesting homemade signs. It was really fun to finally be in Canada again and see some new country.

The end of the road was Cache Creek. A quaint little community of Canadians. We had a 2 bedroom suite that was very needed because we don’t travel light and need all the space we can get. Of course, if we’re realized some of the crazy driving we’d be doing soon, we might have slept even harder.

This log is still incomplete, so there is more to come. The islands and the strait have vanished behind a wall of gray fog, and we just heard the ferry horn calling through the mist.

Wish us luck, and hope the weather holds.

Skipper Krystal and Crewmember Alyssa