Fourth of July Weekend Journey

My Canadian family drove south for the fourth of July to visit the American family. Granted we live in Vancouver and they live in Bellingham WA and it is a mere hour door to door but none the less when an international border is in between it takes on a whole new context. Plus we were going down a beautiful saturday morning just prior to a country wide party. We would never attempt such a silly feat if we didn't have NEXUS passes and  urge anyone that ever travels across the border (there are an equivalent US/MEXICO and air programs as well) to get one - or don't and wait in the 3hr line up next to me.



Before the tots we didn't travel south as much and we always planned around outrages border lineups, but the first year they were born we went down one too many times with screaming infants in the car while we waited next to smoke blowing jalopy's on the right and the rusted out lemon's to the left.

Our crossing was 10 mins.
We actually expected a much longer wait ourselves, there is always one or more cars that get into the line up either by honest mistake or by trying to skip the other lineup all together and this unfortunately can add a half an hour or more to a relatively smooth operation... any way I digress... I just wanted add this in here as one of those things parents should definitely think about if they cross the border often. Trust me, $50 per person for 5 years is so worth it when there are kids are in the car.

We got the beach early, cleaned up the house and the beach front made some pre-meal things, then went into town to go shopping and peruse the the farmer's market.

Here are some snaps from our weekend... hope you all had a good time too...

One of our adventures was taking the tiny (18-20 cars) Watcom Ferry over to Lummi island, thinking that we would get off drive around the island and catch the next ferry back... Low and behold we missed that ferry by 3 cars so decided to kill the hour wait time in a local Beach Store Cafe a few minutes walk from the dock.

We grabbed some very good grub, their motto was "everyday food for everybody" (or something like that).  My husband had a kick as streak sandwich with monster golden onion rings and I had very simply done fish tacos using locally caught ling cod. 

One good thing to note.... If the ferry leaves cars behind, they will come back for you. We watched as they re-loaded the ferry and drove around our abandoned car... This apparently happens all the time and not to worry about if it happens to you. One never knows when they are going to throw caution to the wind and break with the schedule.

photos by me....

Just a reminder 2 more day to enter my children's smock giveaway over at my other blog! Kitsch in the Kitchen.