You may be asking yourself why I am back again entering the US. Well, my second attempt to cross the border into Canada, this time sans the contraband video cameras, did not go any better. This time I was bounced back again, and it turns out that it is quite likely that even Kerry might not be able to get the car across. Basically, what I was doing was smuggling a car that is registered in the US into Canada. Kerry, even though he is a Canadian citizen, will need to have the appropriate documentation, like the title and a bill of sale, in order to import the car.
The Bad Place
The Canadians just did a cursory inspection of the car and turned me around. I think they are tired of seeing me because they gave me some paperwork that I had to present to our border folks. I was shunted aside on the US side and spent a good amount of time waiting first for service, explaining just how I came to be driving a car with South Dakota plates when neither I or the absent owner of the car lives ther, and then while they did a very thorough search of the car. Turned things inside out, and did not do as good a job at repacking the car as the Canadians had. Finally I was on my way out of there.
As much of the YMCA climbing wall that I can get in my frame!
The day was not a total loss, however. My host, Bonnie Kelly, took me over to the local YMCA this morning, and I am now a card-carrying member of the Bellingham YMCA with all the rights and privileges attached. The Y is a very cool place, and on the way out I noticed their climbing walls. The building is four stories high, and the walls go from the basement to the roof! It is the tallest climbing wall in the state of Washington; when they put it in they deliberately made it one foot taller than the wall at REI in Seattle. On another note, here is a small world mind-blower. It turns out that Bonnie and I lived only about four blocks from each other in Chicago between 1955 and 1957!
The kitchen in the Common House
I have also had the opportunity to experience CoHousing, and it is a really cool setup. They basically have a condo complex with 33 units organized in 3 clusters around a common house. It is a beautiful setup, and it is inspiring to see how very much cooperatives are a part of the local culture. I love it!
After my border experience I came back to Bellingham and had a very pleasant couple of of hours walking around the campus of Western Washington University, and the adjacent Sehome Hill Arboretum. The weather was perfect, and the only less then optimal part of that was the lack of students as WWU is also (like Oregon) a quarter school and has not yet started.
By now Kerry should be in Vancouver, and I am waiting on the next plan. I will be here for the night, and I will be updating tomorrow.
Captain Univac 