Travels with Fred & Susan Magness: FALL VACATION 2011 - Wednesday

The “Sunshine Coast” has now become the “No Shine Coast”. The rain has arrived as we get up early to catch the 9:25 a.m. ferry at Saltery Bay. Our plan today is to hike the Skookumchuck Narrows, but now it will depend on the weather. The wind is beginning to blow.

We catch a quick breakfast at McDonalds and arrive at 9:00 at the ferry landing. We board and enjoy a leisure cruise across the inlet. We disembark and must face the reality that the weather is not conducive to hiking the narrows. We had hoped for good weather to watch some kayakers maneuver the whirlpools and rapids. Unfortunately this will have to wait for another time.

Now we must decide what to do the rest of the day. Do we continue in Canada or return to the U.S. and head for Portland?

First, we make a stop at a local COSTCO trying to find our favorite mocha mix Café de Vita. But this is not something we can find in Canada. We make a stop at our favorite Canadian grocery store Save On Foods and buy some of their fantabulous Italian bread. This will make great French toast.

After getting confusing directions from GPS Jill (90% of the time she is a life saver), we finally find the highway to Alder Grove for the border crossing. We have decided to make an early exit from Canada and arrive a day early at the Columbia Gorge.

Border crossing to U. S.

We enter the border crossing. Let’s see, do we have any fruits and vegetables? Yes, a banana and two tomatoes. Any citrus? No. Ok. Any firewood? Yes, three bundles. Please pull over to the right and go into that building. Someone will inspect your firewood and tell you what to do. Ok.

We do as we are told – after all, they have kept our passports just in case we try to make a run for it. A very nice man takes our van keys and goes out to inspect our wood. Sure enough, our wood has not been treated and we have to return it to Canada. He tells us to get back into the van and he will open the gate to Canada. He will meet us at the sidewalk and give us our passports back.

We do as we are told and pull up to the Canadian entry. We explain we have to return our firewood to Canada. Fred asks, “Do you have any ideas what we should do with this firewood? Do you need a good fire tonight?” She chuckles and says, “No, but most people just drive up the highway and put it beside the road with a sign that says ‘FREE’.”

So, that’s what we do. We return to the U.S. entry and tell him we have returned our firewood to Canada. He looks at our passports and returns them, “Have a nice day.” All of this would have been so much easier if we had just said, “No, we don’t have any firewood.” But we remind ourselves that we are good citizens and that would not have been the right thing to do.