Crossing the Canadian Desert – An arid valley between mountain ranges apparently gets little rainfall as they were running irrigation to grow hay.

Apparently the Canadian Provincial Park definition of “pit toilet” is a rustic looking log building with a porcelain bowl and running water. I’m cool with that

It has a glorious tumbling river, a suspension bridge, old growth forest, impressive vistas of Vancouver and beyond, and miles and miles (make that kilometers and kilometers) of trails. The rain stopped and sky cleared to give us a perfect day to enjoy the surroundings.

We took in some of the Spirit of the Sea Festival put on by the City of White Rock and the local First Nation, the Semiahmoo. It was all walking distance from camp. They had three stages with continuous entertainment from noon til 9PM. As you might expect, that resulted is a pretty wide range of talent. Fantastic acoustic guitar by Doug Toll (a Guitar Magazine well known) to a small local band with pretty good instrumental skills but they should have skipped the vocals!
There were fireworks to end the day. Not bad. We were surprised that they actually paused the display for the freight train as it passed by the firing battery.
The locals unanimously recommended the fish and chips at Moby Dick. There was a killer line at the carryout but it was worth it. I suppose any fish tastes a little better when you eat it out along the shore.

I actually had to ask for help to use the cart at Safeway. They are all chained together both in the store and out in the cart corrals in the lot. It turns out that it takes 25Cents to release one. You get the quarter back when you return it too lockup when done with it. The gal at the customer service center said some stores even take a loonie (dollar). It is all part of their effort to keep people from running off with their carts and the practice is apparently fairly widespread here. So far it’s the most unique thing we have found here at our northern neighbor.

The harbors and channels are full of all things that float at Granville Island, Vancouver, BC. We cruised by “boat lots” and checked out what it would take to adopt that lifestyle. It turns out that it is about $3000 a week to vacation on one or around $750,000 to have one of our own that might fit our envisioned lifestyle. We decided the Ironteepee is just fine for us!
The Public Market had about every fruit and veggie imaginable. Just like in Seattle, the unmistakable smell of fish wafted around the corner to surprise me numerous times. We sampled baked goods, marveled at all the stuff and enjoyed the street performers. It was a beautiful day to just be out. The stroll and bench time along the harbor were perfect.

We encountered a bit of a queue at the British Columbia border crossing. It turns out that Monday is BC day and all the locals are out enjoying the long weekend. We waited in traffic 20 or 30 minutes but then sailed right through customs with just a handful of questions and no one even looking into the motorhome or the trailer. We shall see if it’s all that simple coming back into the States in a few weeks.