Seeing The U.S.A. From Our Chevrolet

Well, we didn't have a Chevy, we had a Toyota, but we did use it to see the U.S.A. while still in British Columbia.

We left Naramata about 9:30 Tuesday morning, stopped in Penticton for gas, and then headed south on Highway 97 past Skaha Lake.  The clouds that had obscured the sun the last two days had blown away completely and it looked to be a fine day for driving through the countryside.

Before reaching Oliver we swung southwest onto Highway 3A and drove through a narrow valley dotted with a few farms.  Signs along the road to Ollala shouting "No National Park!" reflected the divergent views on saving land in this area from future development.

When we reached the town of Keremeos a towering wall of mountains to the south blocked passage in that direction.  We turned right and continued our travels westward toward Vancouver upstream along the course of the Similkameen River.  At Princeton we stopped at the tourist information office and learned that we if drove up into the mountains at Manning Park an hour or so to the west we should be able to see the mountains to the south in Washington on the other side of the U.S.-Canadian border.

We left the river valley behind at Princeton and began climbing into the Canadian Cascade Mountain Range.  Paving work being done on the highway slowed us down a bit and at East Gate we bought some "Famous Amos" cookies to quell our hunger pangs after learning to our dismay that Dave's East Gate Diner --- a lunch spot recommended by a woman at the Princeton tourist office --- was closed Tuesdays.

We finally had a late lunch at Manning Park Resort after stopping for a brief, futile hunt for beavers in a pond next to the road.  Then we drove to a lookout point high in the hills opposite the resort where the clear skies allowed us to almost reach out and touch several peaks in the states including Sheep Mountain, Mount Winthrop, and Mount Hozomeen.

By then it 2:30 pm and we were only half-way to Vancouver with two to three hours of driving ahead of us, so the pedal got pushed towards the metal.  On the straight, four-lane stretches of divided highway we shot along at over 100 KPH, but then the road would narrow to two lanes and twist its way over and down the divide between watersheds and we'd slow to 60, 40, or 30 or less.

At one highway construction zone we pulled over to allow traffic behind us to pass, then jumped back onto the road when cars behind us were stopped by a big backhoe moving across the westbound lanes.  As we picked up speed to shot pass a black bear grazing in the grass on the south shoulder --- the first and only such beast we'd seen during the trip that didn't appear on a sign or brochure warning us we were in bear country.

At Hope Highway 3 merged with Highway 5 descending from Kamloops and Highway 1 from Cache Creek which we'd passed through a week earlier and which now became the final route that we would follow all of the way to Vancouver.  Seven days earlier we had crossed the Fraser River at Lillooet; now it accompanied us as we headed toward the Pacific Ocean where both it, and we, would conclude our respective journeys.

Semis exceeding the 100 KPH speed limit dogged us on the down-slope, then fell behind on the upgrades, then finally passed us as the road flattened out and the river valley widened.  The mountains that had been hugging us closely as we drove through the Cascades began to slowly step back from the highway, a few paces at a time, until they no longer blocked sunlight flooding the valley from the southwest.

An hour or so east of Vancouver around Abbotsford (shown in the promotional photo on the right) I looked in the rear-view mirror to check for big rigs bearing down on us and instead so a giant ice-cream cone:  Snow covered Mount Baker, miles away in Washington State.  By now heavy traffic was flowing in the opposite direction and became stop-and-go as we neared the city.

We had slow going as we neared the end of our day's drive.  Long stretches of Highway 1 were under construction and once we reached Vancouver, we met homeward bound workers on the city streets.

Finally, about 5:15 pm, we arrived at the Granville Island Hotel, our sixth and final lodging of the trip. After checking in, we walked along the waterfront that wraps around the east end of the island where the hotel is located.  A few houseboats are moored along False Creek and there is a marina next to the hotel.  The warm sun, within a hour of setting, glinted off the windows in the high-rise buildings on the city side of the inlet.  Two women sat around a glass-enclosed outdoor fireplace at the hotel's bar.

Although there were probably hundreds of restaurants within a 10 minute drive, at 20 or 30 within walking distance, we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant.  Although the bar was busy, only four or five tables were occupied in the dining room.

Our server, Marko, had come to Canada from Croatia.  He had never been to the U.S. even though it was just a few miles away.  To get a visa would have taken too much time and effort he said.  But that would soon change:  He was about to take the citizenship test and if he passed, he would be a Canadian national and could much more easily cross the border.