Vancouver to Seattle
Upon entering the USA through the beautiful and peaceful looking Peace Arch crossing I explained to the customs official that I want to extend my stay for another 6 months. He slapped a sticker on the windshield and directed us to a special parking spot and the offices where we had to plea our case. Verdict was that they cannot make changes on the system so far in advance and that we need to leave the country closer to our expiry date and then come back with this request. Luckily there are quite a few Thousand Trails Parks close by and north of Seattle which is not that far away where we could stay to pass time for one month so it was not that a big problem to cross the border into Canada once more closer to our expiry date. Other options were to fly out and come back which was expensive or cross the border into Mexico which was too far away.
Blaine is a city in Whatcom County on the north western border with Canada. It is also the shared home for the Peace Arch International Monument and the Cross Border Peace Park. This is also the busiest border crossing between Washington and Canada.
Although one has to travel through the official border post with all its waiting times and red tape there are no fences within this park. The Arch symbolizes lasting peace and amity between the U.S. and Canada. Even since 9/11 this treaty was not recalled, and people can enter the Park from either side to have the unique experience of strolling to the opposite park's boundary among flowers, ponds, and works of art, without having to go through Immigration, thus truly making the Park a place of bi-national mingling. Frequently wedding ceremonies are performed in the Park. Who knows how they control who goes in which direction especially if there are lots of people about. This park also host annual celebrations and various concerts and festivities during the year. I went Geocaching in this park and upon leaving my car I noted border patrol officers in a vehicle and on bicycles. The cache was hidden in a thicket tucked away in a little garden and as I was kneeling down to retrieve the cache, one of the officials was on me, investigating my “suspicious behavior”. I had to explain what I was doing and he was unaware of the hidden Cache but knew about Geocaching, and he was satisfied. I think my New Mexico license plate alerted them as New Mexico really has problems with illegal immigrants, and therefore NM spells trouble so close to the border. This showed that the border is not that unprotected despite no fence and the free movement of people in and out of this cross border park.
The Non-Sign II public art erected at the border post which was made from all the steel rods from the previous demolished border post. The art piece is a "blank space" in the shape of a billboard sign, surrounded by a mass of twisted metal rods.
By the late 1800s the roads and railways opened this area as it was once a very remote parts of the USA and only accessible by boat. This area was first settled in the mid-19th century by pioneers who established the town as a seaport for the west coast logging, fishing industries, and as a jumping off point for prospectors heading to the goldfields in British Columbia and to Mt Baker in the eastern part of this county. The city has a "turn-of-the-century" theme, marked by remodeled buildings and signs resembling designs that existed during the late 19th century and early 20th century.
After the forests were logged, the fishing industry remained strong and robust into the second half of the 20th century. Nowadays the two marinas is home to hundreds of recreational sailboats and yachts, and a small fleet of determined local fishers provide visitors with dockside sale of fresh salmon, crab and oysters. The mild weather and flatlands in this county is very fertile with agriculture its major economic activity. Large areas of the bays in this area are very shallow at low tide and when the water retract it exposes miles of swamp type sea beds which means that it is also an important area for Migratory birds and waterfowl. The crabbing season just opened and everybody was catching large crabs from the harbor pier when the tide was in. Undersized crabs were carefully returned to sea.
We camped at the Birch Bay RV resort between the Drayton Harbor and Birch Bay. The RVs mattress was also starting to cause us restless nights and we decided its time for a new one We found a Memory foam mattress in Bellingham at a reasonable price and I was still wondering how to transport this mattress to the RV when the salesman showed me to an elongated bag +- 40cm thick and 2 m long which will fit into the CRV. Unbelievable, the mattress was vacuumed into a plastic bag and rolled into another bag. The foam restored itself to 7 inches of proper mattress within seconds after we removed it from the vacuumed bag. Then we had to get rid of the old mattress but the RV Park manager cut me some slack as he called it, and I could dump it in their big dumpster. Now we sleep like kings.
Two photos of the harbor at dusk and an adjacent small lagoon inlet and the same harbor at low tide
14 Miles south of Bellingham is the small town of Bow and we headed to the Mt Vernon preserve RV Park in the Skagit County. It was next to the highway and a little noisy with traffic passing by. The swimming pool was out of order but it did not worry us too much as it was not really hot in this part of the country It never really get very hot even in midsummer and the campsites are very shady. Clearly the days are getting shorter and although the foresty campgrounds are beautiful one start to seek the more sunny spots, as he wife starts develop shade and forest claustrophobia, which there are not too many of around here. One of the reasons we left the west coast for August and September is that the fog and rain would hopefully clear towards fall, but this is not the case. The temperamental rainy weather is also strange for the locals. We spend our days exploring the surrounding countryside.
The road to Lake Whatcom and then to Bellingham is a pleasant drive if you want to
avoid the I5 highway.
The coastal scenic Chuckanut Drive state route 11 is a slow pace route as it travels through the Skagit valley farmlands located on the Skagit Delta. It also becomes hilly and curvy as it is winding against the rock cliffs of the Chuckanut Mountains and follows the foresty shoreline a couple of hundred feet above sea level. It overlooks the San Juan Islands and offers stunning views of the Chuchanut, Samish and Bellingham Bays as well as the Olympic Mountains in the distance.
En route to Samish Island the road passes Edison a small farming town named after Thomas Edison but he has no connection with this town. Early settlers connected the island to the mainland with a series of dykes which turned the island into a long peninsula between Samish Bay and Padilla Bay and it is really not an island.
Views of Samish bay from Samish Island
Fairhaven is Bellingham’s old historic district with a Victorian era charm and a very important transportation hub where Ferries to the San Joan Islands, cruise ships to Alaska, highways, busses and the railways meet.
La Conner RV Park is on the Fidalgo Island, home of the Swinomish Indian Tribe and the RV park is located on the shores of the Skagit Bay a mere 5 Miles from the town La Conner which is on the banks of the Swinomish Channel. This channel is a manmade shipping route connecting Pacific Bay and Skagit Bay and to shortcut the long shipping route around the Fidalgo peninsula. This was a marchland and early settlers built dikes to control the tidal flooding and tame the river, turning the area into some of the richEST farmland on the planet. Once again the EST is claimed. Today farming and fishing remains the town’s major economic activity. The town is also known for its artists and writers. The Rainbow Bridge connects the island to the mainland. From the outset this bridge was painted orange. This orange steel structure is quite iconic in town as usually all steel bridges are gray in color. 
The Indians owns the southern part of the Fidalgo island and lease property to other American businesses and citizens for development. The RV Park is such a development and the Shelter Bay housing complex is another example. Next to the RV Park the Swinomish Indians caught Salmon by net which was interesting to watch. Open season is 3 weeks every other year and it just started when we were there. It is a community effort where everybody old and young participates with the elderly experience fishermen training others and thus way keeping the custom alive. Amazing was the amount of fish being netted in a very small area and in quick succession. They literally trawl the net into sea and haul it in, whilst still clearing the fish from the previous haul. What seemed odd to me, was that here nobody cared about the crabs that was entangled in the nets. They are being pulled off ripped apart, thrown aside, trampled upon, unlike what I have seen at Birch bay. Fish was not saved from the forklifts wheels all just indicates a careless attitude. When I asked conservationists about this behavior the comment was “we stay away from politics” and “they have a different law that apply to them” Strange it start to sound like in South Africa.
In the month of April, La Conner hosts the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival event which attracts tens of thousands of visitors to view a wide display of tulips. Once again it is claimed to be the biggest in the world which I doubt.
Part of downtown La Conner with the Swinomish Channel behind it. Rainbow Bridge at left and the scenic working fishing port on the Swinomish Reservation across the channel.
La Conner's Rainbow Bridge connects La Conner to Fidalgo Island which includes the gated Shelter Bay Community, the Swinomish reservation, and the city of Anacortes.
The town is also famous for its many wild turkeys. In 2005, the town named the wild turkey as their "Official Town Bird." but one year later they became such a nuisance that the town council have taken action to remove them from the town limits.
Anacortes is a city on Fidalgo Island is known for the ferries dock and terminal serving various islands in the vicinity, as well as Victoria on Vancouver Island. It still has a busy shipyard but in recent years it has become home to a large population of rich Baby Boomers.
View of the downtown and marina of Anacortes, from the east.
A Third of the city is dedicated to wildlife and recreation one such area is Washington Park with its 2.3 miles of loop route that offers fabulous views of the shoreline and Burrows Bay.
The Loop Drive in Washington park.
Mt Erie viewpoint looking down on Anacortes.
Whidbey Island is the largest of nine islands located in Island County. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of Seattle, and lays east the Olympic Peninsula. It has placid bays forested shorelines, and rural landscapes.
Langley with its artistic flair is located on the south end of Whidbey Island, overlooking the Saratoga passage. Langley is a tourist destination and many businesses in immediate area promote themselves in tourist pamphlets available around the world
Coupeville is the second oldest town in Washington and it is in the middle of Whidbey Island, overlooking the Saratoga passage which is not only a major shipping route but it is also known as the Salmon highway as the Salmon swim through this passage to 3 rivers to spawn. The town continues to preserve its more than 100 original pioneer homes with a variety of historic buildings and it also has the oldest working wharf in the Puget Sound. The red barn like building also now host a restaurant and gift shops. With the tide out you can walk on the shoreline where the water splashed against and under the buildings on the waterfront.
Oak Harbor is the first town on Whidbey Island traveling from Deception Pass Bridge which connects the island to the Fidalgo Island and it also overlooks the Saratoga. It is the commercial centre for the island and it home to a Naval Air station.
Deception Pass Bridge, a National Historic Monument.
Monroe is 30 miles north east from Seattle and is named in honor of the nation's fifth president. We made Thunderbird resort 6 miles east of Monroe our base for 4 days to explore the area and also Seattle. Monroe is home to Washington State’s annual Evergreen State which is an important part of the city's culture today. This fair took place whilst we were there and we thought that a statewide fair would be something different to attend, but we were disappointed as it is much of the same that we found in much smaller fairs and this was not that big a fair either. Something different that we enjoyed was the lumberjack competition but it really was just a show no real competition.
Chainsaw Carving and Alaskan Pig races
Skagit River next to the RV Park
Sultan car show off
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After the depression and war, industry did not return to the city and the town became ever more oriented towards agriculture.
Seattle also known as the emerald city is a coastal city and one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States.[5] The city is situated on a narrow passage between Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean e.g. salt water) and Lake Washington (Fresh water), about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, with previous booms being Logging, ship building, and Boeing aircraft building. Boeing moved their headquarters to Chicago but the manufacturing plants still contribute to Seattle’s economy together with software, internet and Biotechnology companies and recently have become a hub for "green" industry.
Downtown Seattle and a ferry at the Central Waterfront
Public market center or the Pikes Place Market with its fresh produce stands and where Starbucks was born.
Longest floating bridge in Lake Washington
Bill Gates’s house is one of the dots on the shore on the other side. After
all the hoo haa about celebrity houses this is all you could see.
Bill Gates’s house is the dot above the little boat in the middle. After
all the hoo haa about the tour include celebrity houses this is all you could see.
Water houses connected to city utilities
Seattle’s own monster (Troll)
Seattle is located between the saltwater Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, is part of Puget Sound, which makes the city an oceanic port
Glide into the City centre with the world’s first full scale Monorail.
Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone in 2001, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake did significant architectural damage.
Link to my blog: http://hseksteen.blogspot.com/
Useful links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaine,_Washington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle