Travel Archives - Page 34 of 38 - Our View From The Road

Day 23: June 11 – Lynden, WA to Abbotsford, BC

Knowing we only have about 20km to drive for our stay tonight, we got to sleep-in and take our time getting ready today. The campground here is very picturesque; however, the neighbors didn’t seem to have volume control of their voices and so that spoiled the site a little. We spent last evening at in the van (it was raining) watching Netflix and therefore didn’t have to listen to their entire conversation.

We left at about 11:30 and went into town to get our last fill-up of fuel in the US before heading to the border crossing. A quick stop at the duty-free shop and onto Canada customs. 3 minutes later and we were wished well on the remainder of our trip. This was by far the quietest and easiest border crossing we’ve ever experienced.

We drive into Abbotsford looking for a place to have lunch and settled on the Field House Brewing Co. on West Railway St. We each enjoyed one of their beers as well as a plate of bruschetta and an order of chicken tacos. Yummy, we highly recommend.

Acre upon acre of raspberry bushes growing adjacent to the Abbotsford airport.

That night we were staying at Campbell’s Gold Honey Farm and Meadery just outside of Aldergrove. They have a wonderful shop where they sell their wares and also locally made crafts. A quiet and secure location where we slept exceedingly well.

Day 22: June 10 – Port Angeles, WA to Lynden, WA

Today we awoke early as we were heading around Puget Sound to our last overnight stop in the USA, Lynden, WA which is just South of Abbotsford, BC our destination for the next day.

These is a way from Port Angeles to Bellingham using ferries; however, we found that these were already fully booked and so we would have to drive to Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle and then onto Bellingham before turning toward Lynden. This would take about 2 hours longer but as we had the time we enjoyed the scenery and didn’t dwell on it as an inconvenience.

Approaching Olympia we’re down at sea level

However, our borrowed GPS thinks we’re a little lower than that! (BTW, notice the name of the road we’re approaching) 😜

Arriving in Seattle. The Space Needle can be seen near the left side of the skyline

The I-5 takes you right under the downtown core of the city

Arriving at the KOA in Lynden, we quickly setup camp and set about relaxing after a day of traffic jams and busy roads. Tomorrow we go home to Canada!

Day 21: June 9 – Fort Stevens State Park, OR to Port Angeles, WA

Today we packed up our campsite and headed toward the Northern shore of the state of Washington. We would drive around Olympic National forest in which is Mount Olympia; however, the weather would not give us a chance to see the mountain as it started raining shortly after we left the campground and rained all day.

Leaving Warrenton and heading towards Astoria, OR

About an hour North of Astoria, Barb finds that South Bend, WA has a statue of the worlds largest oyster. We stopped and in the rain located the statue. Voila!

We stopped in Forks, WA at the Timber Museum and ate lunch in the van before touring the museum. Although small they had some fascinating relics from the BIG timber days of 100 years or so ago.

At the other end of the town of Forks, another museum displayed thousands of items that the owner, John, had collected over the past 47 years from the beaches in the area along the Washington coast. Although a high percentage of his collection is fishing floats, he also has a large collection of items from the 2011 Japanese tsunami that washes across the Pacific.

Day 20: June 8 – Fort Stevens State Park, OR – Day 2

I managed to get up early this morning and go for an hour long walk. The first of the trip ☹️

The walk took me along the shore of a small lake near our campsite and then I headed toward the beach. It’s early so there was almost nobody about.

I managed to get these two pictures of what remains of the wreck of the Peter Iredale. This was a 3-masted steel hulled barque that ran aground in 1906 during bad weather when trying to navigate into the Columbia River just a half mile North.

After returning to the campsite, we spent a relaxing morning enjoying the sunshine albeit somewhat cool at just 14 degrees C.

After lunch we decided to take our bikes down onto the beach to ride them along the hard packed sand.

Tony found a much better cell signal and did some writing.

Barb enjoying the experience of riding on the sand

For dinner we enjoyed steak, potatoes and grilled vegetables with some wine we picked up at Arcadian Moon Winery in Higginsville, Missouri. For the record, the mosquitoes were really bad and the citronella candle was required to have them leave us alone.

Day 19: June 7 – Fort Stevens State Park, OR – Day 1

Today was the first of two full days we are spending at Fort Stevens State Park, a little downtime from traveling and time to enjoy the West coast a little.