Vancouver, BC, and into the Great White North
I finally crossed the border into Canada yesterday afternoon. I know, I certainly took my time doing so, right? I really enjoyed Washington immensely, and I'd love to go back and explore Seattle some more.
Before crossing the border, I stopped in Bellingham, a small town about a half and hour from the border. I'd been there before but didn't really have a chance to check it out much, so I spent some time crusing around the town and seeing the sights (which are pretty minimal - sorry, guys). I had decided to stop at a fish & chips joint that Amy and I went to the last time we cut through (situated in a converted double-decker British bus), but they were closed for the 4th (ironic, no?). While I was figuring out what to have for lunch, a guy approached me and inquired about the DL. It turned out that he had just bought one for himself and was readying it for an Alaskan trip as well! Amazing -I ride 6000 miles without so much as seeing another DL on the road, and then I meet two DL 650 owners in just a couple of days.
I ended up having lunch with my new DL friend and his wife (thanks again for the burrito!) and we talked endlessly about bikes and riding before we went our separate ways. Back on I-5, I continued my journey northward until I hit Route 539, a nice semi-secret way into Canada with a superfast border crossing (unlike the one at I-5, which can take hours). The crossing was painless (they didn't even ask to see any ID!), and I was in Vancouver within about an hour.
I've loved Vancouver ever since I first laid eyes on it five years ago. However, the stars clearly were not aligned for this trip. I had a terrible time finding a hotel (and then my AMEX got brutalized when I did), and didn't end up having a good time, frankly. I really wanted to go out and enjoy my last night in "civilization," but everywhere I went was a let-down. At one point, I even ended up in a bar that had a band playing really, really, really LAME crossover country music that a bunch of drunken chubby girls on the prowl were dancing to (all the guys were sitting around drinking Molson Canadian and Bud Light and looked like they needed a little more "liquid courage" before they could go talk to the girls).
It started raining before I even left town (one last little "fuck you" from the city), and continued as I wound my way north on Route 99 towards Whistler. Between the rain and all the construction I hit, I didn't make it to Whistler until early afternoon. Right around then the rain soaked through my riding pants (I hadn't put the rain liner in, since the weather forecast was for intermittent light rain), which seriously made me consider just bagging on the rest of the day and getting a room somewhere (wet undies will do that). Instead, I decided to press on and ended up being rewarded for it.
Route 99 north of Vancouver is one of the wildest roads I've ever been on. It isn't that technically challenging (although it had many 20 KPH rated turns), rather, you are truly in the wild out there. I drove alone on the road for so long that at one point that I was actually excited to see a car coming in the other direction. Driving through the snow-capped mountains next to roaring rivers with no one else around made me feel sorta like I'd made it to Alaska already.
Before crossing the border, I stopped in Bellingham, a small town about a half and hour from the border. I'd been there before but didn't really have a chance to check it out much, so I spent some time crusing around the town and seeing the sights (which are pretty minimal - sorry, guys). I had decided to stop at a fish & chips joint that Amy and I went to the last time we cut through (situated in a converted double-decker British bus), but they were closed for the 4th (ironic, no?). While I was figuring out what to have for lunch, a guy approached me and inquired about the DL. It turned out that he had just bought one for himself and was readying it for an Alaskan trip as well! Amazing -I ride 6000 miles without so much as seeing another DL on the road, and then I meet two DL 650 owners in just a couple of days.
I ended up having lunch with my new DL friend and his wife (thanks again for the burrito!) and we talked endlessly about bikes and riding before we went our separate ways. Back on I-5, I continued my journey northward until I hit Route 539, a nice semi-secret way into Canada with a superfast border crossing (unlike the one at I-5, which can take hours). The crossing was painless (they didn't even ask to see any ID!), and I was in Vancouver within about an hour.
I've loved Vancouver ever since I first laid eyes on it five years ago. However, the stars clearly were not aligned for this trip. I had a terrible time finding a hotel (and then my AMEX got brutalized when I did), and didn't end up having a good time, frankly. I really wanted to go out and enjoy my last night in "civilization," but everywhere I went was a let-down. At one point, I even ended up in a bar that had a band playing really, really, really LAME crossover country music that a bunch of drunken chubby girls on the prowl were dancing to (all the guys were sitting around drinking Molson Canadian and Bud Light and looked like they needed a little more "liquid courage" before they could go talk to the girls).
It started raining before I even left town (one last little "fuck you" from the city), and continued as I wound my way north on Route 99 towards Whistler. Between the rain and all the construction I hit, I didn't make it to Whistler until early afternoon. Right around then the rain soaked through my riding pants (I hadn't put the rain liner in, since the weather forecast was for intermittent light rain), which seriously made me consider just bagging on the rest of the day and getting a room somewhere (wet undies will do that). Instead, I decided to press on and ended up being rewarded for it.
Route 99 north of Vancouver is one of the wildest roads I've ever been on. It isn't that technically challenging (although it had many 20 KPH rated turns), rather, you are truly in the wild out there. I drove alone on the road for so long that at one point that I was actually excited to see a car coming in the other direction. Driving through the snow-capped mountains next to roaring rivers with no one else around made me feel sorta like I'd made it to Alaska already.
posted by Mathew Elsner at 1:38 AM
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