Good grief Charlie Brown!!! Thank goodness Bob set the furnace at the lowest temperature when we went to bed last night. At 345AM this morning, I woke up to 35 degrees outside and 49 inside - Brrrr. I had heard the furnace kick on and off starting at 130AM and knew we were in trouble. I also heard the guy parked next to us in his truck start it up around 4am. It is so hard to believe that when we left Claremont, California on Monday (this is Friday) they were predicting the high to be in the upper 90's and the low in the 70's. Here we are 5 days later with a low of 35, bone chilling, degrees. I could even see my breathe when I went outside. Amazing - now I know why the "snow birds" head south for the winter. This is the end of April and suppose to be spring for heavens sake.We pulled out of the Wal Mart parking lot around 8AM and ran into heavy fog on the I-5 going north to Tacoma.
A few miles down the road the fog lifted and the sun came out. This section of I-5 was under construction but Bob navigated through that along with the patches of fog along the way like a pro. Driving north on I-5 reminded me of the Northway in Upstate New York - no concrete barriers or sound retention walls - just lots of beautiful tall pines, dense trees with glimpses of farms here and there. What an enjoyable ride to work every day - until you hit the city and the usual traffic jams. Sorry, no pictures, you know who would not stop for any photo ops.We stopped at Camping World in Tacoma around 9AM; to see they would be able to service our generator. Camping World was booked solid for the day and would not be able to get to it until next week, so Bob picked up a spark plug and he is going to try changing that when he has a chance. Maybe that will help. We also picked up a few other things. Camping World is like Sam's Club or Costco - you just can't go in and browse - you always come out with something.
From there, we headed to Flying J to get one of our propane tanks filled. What a busy place. I'm glad we did not need diesel. This was located on the Port of Tacoma Road and the pump lanes were full and 2 deep waiting for diesel. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for these truck drivers who can jockey these huge rigs around in close quarters.Back on I-5 for a short distance and took I-405 to bypass Seattle in hopes of avoiding some of the early morning traffic. Traffic proved to be just as heavy though. We made it around Seattle and I managed to catch one picture as we whipped by the skyline. We were actually making good time, so we stopped at the Smokey Point Rest Area for a quick lunch and potty break. The rest areas in Washington have all been very nice.
We reached Bellingham, Washington at around 1PM and turned off I-5 onto Rt 539. This was our last stop for diesel before crossing the border. Diesel was $2.49/gal. and our friend, Randy, had told Bob that it was running around $3.35/gal in British Columbia.
We were going to stop at Wal Mart for the night, but it was only 1PM, so Bob decided to keep going. We arrived at the border crossing at around 215pm and had about a 20 minute wait in line. When we got up to the border agent he was really rude. He wanted to know why we did not have a license plate on the front of the truck and we told him that Arizona did not have front license plates - just back. He wanted to know how anyone could see the plate on the back of the truck when it was blocked by the 5th wheel. Bob explained that the 5th wheel had a license plate on it. Then he wanted to see the registration, etc. He wanted to know why Bob had not pulled up closer to the window on the booth and Bob told him that he could not get any closer without hitting the 5th wheel on the barriers. It was an experience. He must have been having a bad day. Anyway we finally got through and headed into B.C. Of course, all the mileage signs are in kilometers and we were having trouble converting.
I did manage to get a few pictures "on the fly" of the country side before we got to Chilliwack B.C. We decided to stay at Cottonwood Meadows R.V. Park for the night so that we could take showers and dump the tanks. Our spot is actually quite nice - and even a little isolated. It beats the old Wal Mart parking lots. Hopefully it will not be as cold tonight.
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