When the Going Gets Tough...

18/5/11

It took us approximately four days (with a two-day stay in Graham, WA to visit Steff's Aunt Joyce--thanks for the accommodation and the tour of Olympia, Joyce!) to get to the Canadian border. 

The scenic route from Portland to Tacoma

This lake appears to have been a forest?

Mount Rainier!

Joyce's house and big-boned hound

Seattle!

It took us five days to actually get into Canada. Here's why:

We got up on the morning of the thirteenth in Skagit County, WA. We were unspeakably excited: today we would touch foreign ground, and begin a major component in our trip. Today signaled a new beginning for us--new experiences, new cultures, new people, new skills. We drove giddily to the border at Blaine, WA, getting increasingly excited with each sign we passed that announced the upcoming US-Canadian border.

Time crawled, and so did Willie; we sat, positively trembling in anticipation in line at the crossing.

Our turn arrived, slowly, but surely. 

"What is your business in Canada?"

We told the man, visiting friends and family, camping, traveling, volunteering on organic farms for a short period in between.

We were handed a yellow slip and told to go inside the customs building to await our fate. We parked and entered the great looming structure, confused but still pleasantly excited.

Shepherded to a counter on the left, we found ourselves confronting a harsh-faced man with deep seams along his cheeks, forcing his lips into a tight, stern scowl. 

"You're working?"

"No, volunteering. Are you familiar with the WWOOF programme?"

"Yes. Do you have a work permit?"

"No…We don't require one." We looked at each other, obviously puzzled.

"Do you have paperwork for me that proves you don't?"

"No, sorry."

"Please have a seat." He directed us towards a row of hard plastic chairs at the other end of the room.

We sat for ten or so minutes, anticipation quickly giving way to apprehension.

"Werman and Howie."

We rose. We were timid and unsure of what to expect next. 

"Work in Canada is defined as anything which takes opportunities from Canadian citizens, or for which the individual receives renumeration, monetary or otherwise," he told us. "You cannot enter Canada without a work permit."

We looked at each other. Having researched the matter extensively prior to our arrival in Canada, we knew him to be wrong. 

"I think you'll find that WWOOFers are exempt," we informed him tentatively.

"Can you prove it?"

"We don't have the documentation with us, but--"

"Then my decision stands. You won't be entering Canada today."

"We could show you online, on the immigration websi--"

"Internet access is for immigration officers only."

Desperation began to set in.

'WWOOFing is not stealing jobs from Canadians--"

"It is."

"It isn't, we promise! What Canadian would volunteer five hours of hard physical labour for ten days, expecting nothing in exchange but food, a bed, and a cultural experience?"

"You're taking an opportunity from a Canadian citizen."

Sigh.

"So is there anything we can do to remedy the situation?"

He looked at us suspiciously. "Not today. Come back with a work visa." Staunch and unyielding. 

"Can we get one in the US?" we asked.

"No."

Incredulously. "So we'd have to return to New Zealand to get a visa?!"

"Yes."

This left us momentarily dumbfounded. We tried another tactic.

"We can't cross the border today. How do we improve our chances next time we attempt entry?"

Now he glared. "I have decided that you won't enter today" (yes, we know), "so this failed attempt will show up in the system next time you attempt entry. It is highly unlikely that you will be allowed to enter Canada in the future, without a work visa."

We've been working for two years in order to save up and travel around Canada, we told him. We bought a van! We researched this thoroughly before we tried to cross the border, we reasoned, and WWOOFing is legal. We can't re-enter the States for longer than another two months on Nancy's visa, we concluded.

"I don't care. I have made up my mind for today."

He escorted us out of the building, and the country.

Shortly thereafter, we found ourselves in Blaine, WA, at a complete loss. 

"What the hell do we do now?"

A library, once again, came to the rescue. Steff printed off all the documentation we thought we might require, and then some. We called WWOOF, our farm hosts, and everyone else who might be of some help to us, then found a marina to camp out in. We went to sleep, exhausted and spectacularly crushed. 

On the fourteenth , we rose early. Today, we told ourselves, we would cross into Canada. On the way, we stopped for coffee, where an older couple told us of a much smaller crossing further east of Blaine. "It's more relaxed there," they assured us, with some degree of sympathy.

They were right. There was no wait, and when we approached the officer booth, we were met with a wide grin. 

"From Auckland, eh? I love Auckland! Been back several times! I have friends in Browns Bay!"

Then she checked her computer. "What happened yesterday, ladies?" she enquired, her tone gently reprimanding.

We explained and were once again sent inside to be grilled, by a third border official. This time, however, our new officer friend followed us indoors to give us a rundown of acitivities we might enjoy in Vancouver. Encouraging, definitely.

Forty minutes and a lot of paperwork later, we were hightailing it (north, this time) away from the border. We had arrived in Canada!

Oh, Canada!

We were beginning to feel the same way.

...Then our car broke down. Our trusty, beloved Willie spluttered and lurched her way into residential White Rock, BC. Panicking, we used Tow #1 (of a possible 7. Thanks, AAA) to get to a VW mechanic. 

Not to worry, it was just a blown air hose. And all was well in the world. 

Until Willie broke down again. After Tow #2, and a lot of clamps, silicone, and cable ties (that air hose just wanted to be free!), we were on the road again. Our mechanic took pity on us poor, impoverished travelers; all up, we were set back $50. Thanks, Kevin's Auto Clinic!

Here we are, celebrating our arrival in Canada:

At THE White Rock for which the town is named, with our good friend Alex

Looking back at Blaine with glee!

Another odd thing happened following our arrival in Canada: we went feral. Our accommodation plans fell through somewhat and we were unexpectedly made quasi-homeless. Suddenly, we were showering in campsite sinks and walking to the supermarket every morning to use the facilities without a second thought. Steff climbed onto the roof, much to the alarm of our tame and housed neighbours, to fix a slow, seeping leak. 

Duct tape saves the day, again.

We snuck into an adjacent construction site port-a-loo while the builders went out to lunch. We became scruffy and probably fairly fragrant. Now, dear readers, we are true vagabonds!

As our stay in White Rock draws to a close, we prepare ourselves for our journey to Gabriola Island and our farming experience. 

Customs and breakdowns and squalor, oh my! What will our intrepid journeywomen encounter next? Tune in next time!

A parting thought: do any of you readers have any border-crossing horror stories? Share them with us; post a comment at the bottom of the entry!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

People and Places

In real estate, "location, location, location" defines quality. So what has quality for our decidedly real estate-less travelers? As the Maori proverb goes, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata! What do you mean you don't speak Maori? (It is people, it is people, it is people).

We have seen expansive, rugged coastline, white sandy beaches, and breathtaking rainforests, but the sights we have seen rarely compare to the people who have shared our experiences with us.

Exhibit A: Roger and Bette (and Lulu and Nelly and Corky)

We continued up the Oregon coast, past Tillamook (with a brief stopover at the Tillamook Cheese Factory) to the fair village of Bay City. It is here that we ran into Roger and Bette, friends of olde. We would be lucky to ever meet a more hospitable pair.

Steff rides a cheesemobile at the factory

Together with Roger and Bette, we walked the dogs, had Cat Stevens sing-alongs, shared dinnertime conversation, and met their friends. We learned the names of most Oregon flora and received a crash course in photography from these talented enthusiasts (check out their work here. It's beautiful!). They gave us the locals' tour of Tillamook Bay, complete with a historical rundown of the area.

But first, the dogs:

Lulu, who was raised on PowerThirst (runs as fast as KENYANS!). Bright and manipulative, her favourite game was to pit the other two dogs against each other without them realising.

Nelly, the half-Malamut who was spectacularly shy. It took her nearly 7 days to come out from under the coffee table and lick our fingers.

Corky, the original alpha dog, and Steff's new best friend.

To Roger and Bette (and the pups), Tillamook County is heaven on earth; their detailed guided tours allowed us to see Tillamook through their eyes. We extend many thanks to the five of them for welcoming us into their lives and their family.

Exhibit B: Russell and the roommates

From Bay City, we drove through the Tillamook Forest (which is lookin' good after a long and devastating period of fires and a massive community reforestation project that spanned decades). We landed in Portland, Oregon.

Portland was a city we visited briefly, yet fully, with another photographer and his roommates. We received a thorough tour of the Montavilla and Hawthorne areas, care of our photographer friend and one particular roommate, Shelly. We shared meals, forged friendships, and even modeled for an impromptu photo shoot.

More of Russell's work can be found here.

We had our first taste of southern hospitality in our interactions with Shelly (at the northernmost point Nancy had ever traveled). The amiable Texan took us on a guided circuit of the city, pointing out important landmarks and treating us to Portland's own Stumptown Coffee. And if we fell silent?
"Is there something you guys need that you aren't asking for?"

The city of Portland yielded such pleasures as Powell's Books (a bookstore that's four storeys high and a city block long in length) and VooDoo Doughnut (home of the Maple Bacon doughnut). Let's elaborate a little on those doughnuts:

Pre-consumption, pre-sugar high.

...And the sugar kicks in about now.
The voodoo pin on the  "Voodoo" doughnut image is a pretzel, and next to Steff's left leg is a photo of the Maple Bacon Doughnut. Nom.

The Voodoo topiary

The display cabinet. Behind it is a shelf of trays of fresh, hot doughnuts.

An urban renewal agency (the Portland Development Commission), set up in 1958 by city voters, appears to have served the city well. Then there's City Repair. The site says it better than we can:

"City Repair began in Portland, Oregon with the idea that localization - of culture, of economy, of decision-making - is a necessary foundation of sustainability. By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, we plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower our communities and nurture our local culture."

Portland has a small-town, organic feel. It is packed with quirky local cafes, art galleries, bead shops, bookstores, co-ops, and porn theatres (allegedly, Portland has more strip clubs per capita than San Francisco and Las Vegas. In 1987, the Oregon Supreme Court specifically found that lap dances and nudity in strip clubs are protected speech, constitutionally protected. Yee-haw.). There is a strong buy-local movement in place. As the all-knowing cybersage Wikipedia notes, Portland is arguably "one of the most environmentally friendly, or 'green' cities in the world". And all the locals we met spoke fondly and proudly of their little city (except this one woman at a bus stop who grumbled bitterly about not remembering what the sun looked like). Everyone had a suggestion for a place we should go or an activity we should partake in. We concluded, wholeheartedly, like everyone else in the area, that we loved PDX (although, like everyone else, we can't tell you how Portland acquired this moniker).

Another beautiful Harry Potter moment, courtesy of a fan in Portland.

After a few days in the City of Roses, we concluded that, just like Tillamook, it was the people of Portland who moulded our experience of Portland.

Having amassed many cheerful memories, we found ourselves sad to leave Oregon. Occasionally, wistfully, we say to ourselves "I miss having my gas pumped for me."

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

The Long and Winding Road

 

We found our way back onto the open road, after a tangle of metropolitan freeways! We will get to that, but first, the obligatory photos, and some parting comments for the Bay Area:

A beautiful Berkeley moment.

We visited Stanford. We thought about it. "No, we don't have $55, 000 a year to spend on schooling," we concluded.

A filthy, dirty children's book we found at Berkeley Earth Day.*

*Note: "Fanny" does NOT mean "bottom" in New Zealand.

Goodbye, Alameda!

A very special thank you to our hosts in Alameda, and to Osa, for tolerating all of our entrances and exits. Here she is, a special feature in this entry:

What a ham!

Bye, Osa!

Before departing, we did what every intrepid traveler must do: stacked up on gummy bears, pretzels, Easter candy, and (most importantly), root beer. In teensy little cans.

Suitably equipped with sweets, we headed out. Here's what our drive looked like, up the Pacific Coast Highway:

 

 We were lucky to have such glorious weather, as many have informed us that they have been cursed with an unusually large rainfall in the area, all year.

Steff:
 Operation Boycott-Overpriced-and-Under-maintained-California-State-Park-Campsites was successful! 

We woke at 8 (in the campsite) to muted light filtering down through the redwood canopy.

The trees appeared black, silhouetted against the morning light. Colours started to appear as the light grew, reddish brown trunks, green foliage, blue sky. Now there is a solar wake-up call that this non-morning person can deal with.

A hot cooked breakfast is the best antidote to the bitter cold.

We had a brief, chilly, quarter-powered shower and left behind schedule at noon. We stopped on Avenue of the Giants and walked part of a loop track into the redwoods.  

Avenue of the Giants. As seen through our reflective front windshield.

It was wonderful, quiet, damp, cool. Much more spacious than New Zealand bush. Perhaps these are more mature forests than our ferny, tangled proto-forest. This forest held so much life, and the energy from the flora was tangible, peaceful. Huge trees were surrounded by other ancient giants, which had toppled and were rotting on the forest floor. Dense redwoods, along with being old (one particular tree with a 9-foot diameter was approximately 800 years old), rot very slowly, releasing their nutrients back to the soil over hundreds of years.

We continued our journey through the redwoods. It is here, in Humboldt, that we learned the noble "Redwood Rap". Here's a sample verse:

"For millions of years, these tree have been chillin'
After lots of loggin' these trees are really illin'
'Cuz after many years of hackin' and hackin'
There ain't many left, they're really lackin'"

No, we didn't make them up. Here are some such redwoods. Just chillin'.

Nancy:
I had a great day today. For a start, I wasn't mauled by bears last night (apparently there are a few left in this forest), and I woke up this morning intact and well. 

We departed at twelve and drove for six and a half hours. In that time, we:
-went for a stroll among the redwoods

 -spotted a banana slug (and submitted it to amateur photography)
-listened to Phoebe Snow, Cat Stevens, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Jimmy Buffett, and Butterbeans and Susie; sang very loudly
-Made an ambiguous friendship with some motorists from Quebec (they followed us for about 30 miles, in spite of our excruciating uphill crawl; when they passed us, they flashed us a note from their front window, but we couldn't read it. Canadian friends, if you're reading this, what were you trying to tell us?!)
-Arrived in Oregon and had someone else pump our gas for us (it's illegal for us to do it)

-Ate a LOT of ice cream (mmm, Haagen Dazs) and gummy bears, and washed it down with some root beer--don't worry, teeth, I'll brush twice in compensation
-Were nearly blown off the road by gusty onshore breezes, and tooted at twice by angry motorists
-Arrived in a forest at Cape Blanco (where?) in coastal Oregon (somewhere). 

Life, I do believe we're living you.

Love,
Nancy

  We farewelled April at Beverly Beach (LA 44, LONG -124, approximately. We know this, because we had to go to the camp's information centre to figure out where we actually were, having picked a campsite at random when we tired of driving). The drive on the 30th was not as exciting as the previous day; lots of straight lines and forest. What we had initially thought of as ruggedly beautiful quickly turned into tolerably mundane. Trees. More trees. The odd lake. That is, until we happened upon the ocean (o hai, oshun!). There is something so majestic and captivating about the ocean: it is relentlessly fascinating. Whereas even the most gorgeous forest can rapidly grow old, we could happily drive along the coast for hours.

So, besides driving through forest and past quaint coastal towns, what did we do on April 30th? We avoided being tourist-trapped into paying a $12 a head to see some sea lions in their natural habitat. How's this for a rip-off scheme? Charge tourists far too much to view something you don't even need to feed or maintain--no overheads, bonus!

Here is Steff, defiantly NOT looking at the sea lions.

We arrived, after five long days of driving, in Bay City, OR. Along the way, we noticed this:

It appears that Oregon's homeless population are an industrious bunch. While a lot of the Californian homeless were seated, or traveled slowly via shopping cart, we saw hordes of Oregonian bums walking or biking along the highway. Slowly, quickly, up and downhill, south, north (and possibly east and west--we don't know, because we're not going that way). They're fit, this lot.

That's all for now, folks.

Until next time!

-Your intrepid journeywomen


The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.