Sneaking across the USA border

Hi everyone! This is a quick little blog of our run across the USA border in the attempt to renew our Canadian work permits.
The map below half overlaps with the last blog that we did as this trip started where the adventures with my parents finished.
 

































We We left home with the parents on Saturday morning and worked our way to Vancouver ready for them to catch their plane out on Sunday and as a final goodbye dinner we visited out favorite Vegan Pizza place in Vancouver. 

 
<<<<<
I'm sure that I have mentioned it before but if you're ever passing through Vancouver it is worth a stop to support the small business vegan community.

The food is fantastic and the people are real and happy to share their stories with you. 







Once the goodbyes were said and the tears choked back, the folks headed to the airport and home, and we headed on to the "Excited States of America". 

We crossed the boarder at the "peace arch" crossing, which for those of you who have never been is a large crossing point were the highway crosses the country. 

(sorry bad photo but you get the idea) 




Once we finally got across the border (you'd think the Mexicans were getting in from Canada!) we set off to check out the shopping at some of the famous factory outlets on the way down to Seattle. 

The original idea was to cross the border, buy some boots at the fancy shops for winter, head to Seattle and the head back to the border. As you will soon find out those plans changed on the way and we crossed to the next state down and went to Portland in Oregon State as well!  

<<<< This is a Bit Coin machine, for those of you who don't know what Bit Coins are, to put it really simply it is online money that you can earn online and that is actually a recognized currency and here at this machine you can cash your Bit Coins for US dollars. You make your computer "mine" for the coin by doing a certain algorithm that basically generates money out of nothing. 
(we had never seen one of these before) 

We finally arrived in Seattle and we stayed at the Maxwell "Pineapple" Hotel which was nice and clean and the price was mid-range. However everything from when you arrive cost money, and about 2 times more then is reasonable to charge.

We arrived in Seattle around 4pm in the afternoon so we decided to set out and see what we could see before it got too dark. 

From this point on I could not stop smiling, I loved Seattle!! There was art and culture and children playing the city was alive. Lets work through the following photos, sorry they are mostly selfies. 

 

Above: A giant water feature the moved around and the children were running around dodging the water jets. In the background the Space Needle (we had intended to go here but the lines were long and we were out of time and had to keep moving) 
Below: a video around the water feature.


















This is the major area that we walked around, to see all the cool artworks and people having a good time.

Bananas models hanging from trees

These giant "flowers" are in a solar-powered "sonic garden", where the flowers move with sunlight energy, and make interesting sounds as you walk past them.

A sculpture of red painted steel pipe sections, cut and stacked in a chaotic way. This is called the Olympic Illiad. 

Some residents of Seattle were probably trying to provide a moral uplift for their fellow citizens, at the thought that Trump would be elected (the entire western coast voted for Clinton, but Trump got in!)

After a long night of walking around exploring, we went back to the hotel and there was a vegetarian/vegan chinese restaurant 100 metres away, so we went there. Below are some pictures of the food we had!

On the following day, we managed to get out and go biking around Seattle's bay/harbour area, and got to see some industrial areas and a pretty clear view of the massive mountain in the distance. We think it's Mount Baker, which supposedly can also be seen on clear days all the way from Vancouver, Canada. 

  

There were lots of nice riding tracks along the bay area. 

We saw plenty of interesting architecture in Seattle, strange shaped towers and bubble-shaped buildings everywhere.

After we finished our ride we scrambled back to the hotel, which was slow going in traffic and the mess of Seattle's streets.. We jumped in the car and drove down to Vancouver, Washington. Yes that's right, Washington State has a small town called Vancouver in it! How silly.

The reason why we went down here, was because we knew an old friend of ours from Highschool was now living in Oregon with his wife. George and Erin had agreed to meet us halfway for a chat and general get-together. They have lots of lovely kids, so we chose to meet at a park so they could get out and play a bit. 

The park we met at was the Esther Short park, supposedly one of the first public (government run) parks on the west coast, established in 1853. It was basically a town-square, and was pretty nice in general. 


George and co arrived and we had a great chat, first time seeing him for 8-9 years (since grade 12). We got to meet his lovely wife and children, and later that afternoon we went across the border into the north part of the city of  Portland, Oregon. 

George runs his own IT business, called McKenzie River Tech (website http://www.mckenzierivertech.com/ ), and he says "It's an IT business, working with clients on anything tech related. We fix computers, design websites, and programs if needed. Whatever it takes to keep a business running!". So if any of our readers are in the Oregon State and need help with anything related to IT for the smooth running of your business, visit his website and give him a call! 

We had dinner and said our farewells, and travelled from Portland all the way home to Salmon Arm - 10 hours of driving. We got to the Canadian border crossing at about 11pm, and got our work permits renewed which was a relief. 

By the time we got home (4am) we were sleep-walking zombies, lucky, we had the day off to recover!

That's it for now, thanks for reading another installment of the Findlater's Travels. 

The Parents come to Canada

Hello all it has been a while since our last adventure which was to England.

So I thought that it was about time that we did another blog and what better than to share with you the adventures that we have been up to while my parents were over from Australia to visit.

Lets kick this off by letting you know what you are in for, and what this blog will cover. 

We will be starting in Vancouver (the red dot on the map) where I picked the parents up from the Airport and the small adventures that we had there before heading home to Salmon Arm (blue dot) and our little day trips out to the surrounding areas and attractions (close green dots). 

Then we will be moving on to the great adventure part of our journey which was out to Jasper National Park and to see the Columbia Ice Fields Glacier (further away green dots). 

Vancouver

First stop Vancouver, I picked up the folks and apparently they were not as jet-lagged as I had hoped so instead of heading to the hotel to get some sleep we went to check out Stanley Park. The first thing we see is this cheeky sea lion (Below) that was hanging out in the bay and seemed to follow us as we walked along the shore front.   

 

The next day we went to check out the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was a well maintained, and it even had heated toilets in the middle of the forest! It was a little over-priced for the amount of activities and the time that it takes to walk the park but it is apparent that the money is definitely reinvested into the upkeep.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge is basically hanging bridges and tree-top walks that takes you on a journey through the forest allowing you to view and experience the environment from cliffs, canopies and the ground. Here are some photos from the park.

  

After checking out the suspension bridge we headed home to Salmon Arm to settle the folks in and the following are some adventures from out and about the greater Salmon Arm area. 

Mushroom Hunting:

I know that you guys are well aware of my mushroom hunting adventures last year, well I enjoyed it so much that I though that I should share the experience. So here we go with this years Mushroom Hunting adventures. 

Over all we ended up, mushroom hunting for three weekends, the whole ordeal was a little nerve wrecking for me, as mum, Kyran and Aita (means "Father" in Basque) all insisted in eating what they picked. The nerve wrecking bit was what they were putting in their basket with the edible mushrooms.

FUN FACT # 1: 

Did you know Amanitas (a genus of gilled mushrooms) are a group of complex cyclic polypeptides which damage tissues by inhibiting RNA synthesis within each individual cell. Onset of symptoms manifests itself in four stages:

• First stage is a latency period of 6 to 24 hours after ingestion, in which the toxins are actively destroying the victim's kidneys and liver, but the victim experiences no discomfort.
• Second stage is a period of about 24 hours characterized by violent vomiting, bloody diarrhea, and severe abdominal cramps.
• Third stage is a period of 24 hours during which the victim appears to recover (if hospitalized, the patient is sometimes released!)
• Fourth stage is a relapse, during which kidney and liver failure often occurs, leading to death. Patients may also “bleed out” and die due to the destruction of clotting factors in the blood. There may be more than one relapse. 

( http://www.namyco.org/mushroom_poisoning_syndromes.php)

FUN FACT # 2: We had the above mentioned mushrooms in our basket with the edible ones on multiple occasions. 

That is our mushroom hunting adventures in a nut shell, there were cold days and there were good not-so-cold days but over all I think we found at least one of every mushroom that we wanted to find... and eat! 

Salmon Milking:
How do you milk a salmon I hear you ask?

Well we came across this salmon milking as we finished up one of our mushroom hunts so the first half of the milking process was done when we came across them. However after much question asking I managed to get the answer of how you milk a salmon.

What they did was to catch both male and female salmon and collect the eggs from the females and the milk from the males. Now you know where the milk comes from you can probably imagine how they get it. Yep the squeezed the it out of the salmon, and the females... well there is no nice way to get the eggs from the female salmon so they get murdered and have their eggs removed.

So what they did was to catch a few females and a few males and take their respective products from them and then take to products back to base. This is where we came in.

They got a bunch of kids that had helped with the first half of the process to help mix the milk and eggs together. The eggs were okay with being kept out of water but had to be kept out of direct sun light. The milk was only good if it was not mixed with water. The minute that the water hits the milk, the milk is only good for about 10-15 seconds.

So the process went eggs, milk (from multiple males) and then water, stir for 10-15 seconds and then by that time all the eggs should be fertilized and the water is poured off and the eggs are rinsed. 

Once all that is done they put the eggs in a water filtering system to grow over winter and then little salmons/salmonids are released into the wild next May.

The Big trip to Jasper:

This trip was planned in order to finish the second half of the well-known and much-anticipated road trip from Vancouver to Banff. Growing up, it seemed that anyone who was anyone had done this road trip/adventure. So we set off to see what all the excitement was about! 

Below: Road trip sustenance, vegan sorbet that was as good as and even better then it looks. 



Next I guess we will just go through a few of the photos from the trip:

Below:  One of the stops along the way is the "Last Spike". I won't go into it in too much detail as we have already done a blog on this in the past. But I will say that this is the point where the East met the West and they drove the last spike into the railway. 

Above: Despite our best efforts to see a local bear the best that we could find were some rather grumpy looking statues of them but that was enough for the folks they had a good enough time with the fake ones than they would have probably have had with any real ones. 

Below: We were lucky enough that not only was there snow on the mountains, but it was on the ground and falling from the sky.

Below: Lake Louise, it was not a frozen as I had expected nor as cold but it was always very beautiful. 

Below: This photo here was taken after a short hike to a lookout over Lake Lousie. Now I don't profess to know how the male mind works, but somehow as the snow is falling around us Aita decided that it was the perfect time to show that he is a tough man and took his shirt off and rolled in the snow. 
Me, well I was conserving heat... him? Well if he ended up with pneumonia there would be no surprises.
 

 
One of the local fauna (Presumably a Chipmunk) was happy to show us what he was eating and not the slightest bit shy. It was gently snowing and then here was this guy just eating and watching the view!

We also went briefly to check out the Cave and Basin Hot springs that were in Banff. It was a great set up, not a full day's adventure but worth a look nonetheless. It is home to a species of snail that does not live any where else in the world. So it was all set up very well to protect the snails but so that we can see and learn about the hot springs and surrounding area. 

The Colombia Ice Fields:

So without knowing it I had booked us to stay at the Ice fields on the last night of the season. Little did I know that this was a summer thing to do and that the whole area become too unsafe (and obscured) during the winter to remain open. 
Below: It is a little hard to see due to all the snow on the glacier, but if you look at the middle of the photo where the two mountains meet you can see like a wave of solid glacier punching through. Well that is the glacier!
To help you out I stole a photo off the internet to show you what the area looks like in the summer. 

http://www.visitcalgary.com/things-to-do/arts-attraction/attractions/columbia-icefields-glacier-adventure

Left and Above: These photos were taken after we had reached the glacier and mum and Aita had decided that even though the buses were not running and conditions were going from bad to worse that they were going to see the glacier - even if they had to go on foot. 

Having written my parents off for dead and come to terms with being an orphan, I decided that if life gives you snow then why not build a snow man. 

So here is Kyran next to the snow man that we built. 











The weather is usually something that you need to be weary of in the these conditions however it did prove to be the locals that cause a hazard on the road. They were not phased that we were there or in a car and they continued parading down the road at a leisurely pace.

That my friends brings us to the end of the Jasper trip. It was a nice adventure, we seemed to have great weather the entire way, or at least it was not dangerous. All the roads were open and ploughed so all in all, "10 out of 10 would do again". 

Next I will just go through some of the extra, random photos from some of our smaller adventures.
 

Below: Climbing up a rock slide like a herd of goats at Syphon Creek Falls, it was not conventional nor was it on the track but the near-death experience was worth the view.

Below: We did head to Adams Lake to see if we could spot some salmon swimming up stream to do their thing and die. The photos were not so good so I apologise for that. There was a lot of glare on the water so we tried getting a photo or two through the polarised sun glasses but I have definitely added a polarised filter for my camera to the Christmas wish-list. 

Above: This was the viewing platform that was set up specifically for Salmon Viewing.

Above and Below: from the walk along the river to see if we could spot some more salmon.

There was a little Mother and Daughter sneaky pedicure with matching paint jobs. 

As there is nothing like your mother's cooking, there were many an opportunity around the table to debrief after work and share the stories from the day's adventures. 
Heads up, it usually went along the lines of.... " did you see what I got from the second hand shop today?", and "No mum what did you get today?".

Well as the song goes... "we had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun, but the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time."

And like it was yesterday, the visit was over and it was time to see if everything was going to fit in the suitcases from whence they came, plus all their newly acquired loot.

Well thanks to my parents for coming, and to you for tuning into another adventure with the Findlaters. I hope you had as much fun reading it as we did doing it! 

***

Goodbyes are not forever, goodbyes are not the end, they simply mean i'll miss you until we meet again! 

***