Canada

Checked off Utsalady on the list, next stop Canada. The first stop was really quick, just on the border. I showed the nice gentleman my passport, answered politely "No sir" to the question asked whether I was bringing handguns for protection and "I wish!" to the question whether I was bringing more than 10.000$ in cash, he let me in to his country. I'm anxious about if the process of getting back into the US is going to be just as simple.

Continuing north, with just a little traffic jam crossing the bridge on Hw99 into Vancouver, I arrived with a dangerously full bladder. The cool thing about the US - and Canada, I was about to find out, is that any lager size store, be it a supermarket or an outdoor equipment store, has a customer restroom - or washroom as the Canadians apparently like to call it. I pulled in to a Safeway and sat down for a bit, got the essentials: a loaf of artisan bread, pepper salami, stick of butter, a 50 pack of yogurt and a gallon of orange juice, I should be set for meals for the next couple of days.

I walked around Broadway in search of a Canada Goose retailer and a sleeping bag outlet, found both, and ended up with a sleeping bag, a ski magazine, a Lonely Planet Canada guide and a Complete Canada Backpackers Guide to Hostels - and a membership card for the Mountain Equipment Co-op. Wonder when I'll ever gona need that again? Oh, well. They have one in Calgary. I might stop by there. Not much more for me to do in Vancouver this time, so I headed east. People I'd been talking to said Whistler had just had rain and ice, and that one day it'd been +18 degrees C (that is about 64 Fahrenheit) on the top.

Here's an unedited pocket camera picture of a part of Broadway, Vancouver with the mountains in the back.