God save the Queen

This is a picture of Vancouver that I stole from the Internet

Good Lord. Chaos has consumed the last three days. Between frantic bus rides, sleeping in thorny bushes, a five-hour tire repair (related to the thorny bushes), and arriving in Vancouver, it's a wonder that I'm still even alive. Let's backtrack to Friday and I'll start from there. 

That day, I left Seattle and headed for Sedro-Woolley, WA, 82 miles away. Pangs of laziness took me though and I decided to stop in Arlington, WA, 30 miles shy of my destination. I planned on sleeping in Arlington for the night, until I arrived and the complete lack of human life became apparent. There was no one on the streets and very few in the shops or anywhere that I looked. I charged my phone at the library and bounced out of there as fast as I could. However, the stop in Arlington put me two hours behind schedule for Sedro-Woolley meaning that I'd arrive around 7 PM. I'd never rolled into a town that late before since finding a place to stay takes time. I started worrying. 

And rightfully so because Sedro-Woolley sucked. My perception of a town is almost completely tied to how easy it is to find accommodations there. Whitefish, MT? Amazing. Estes Park, CO? My dream. But Sedro-Woolley ranks down at the bottom of the list, right underneath Columbia Falls, MT where I had to hide in the community center, wait for everyone to leave, and almost got locked in. I searched for two solid hours in Sedro-Woolley. I even asked the leaders of two different churches if I could just pitch my tent on the property for the night. They said no. WWJD?!

So I rode my bike three miles out of town until everything became farmland. There, I was lucky enough to be riding slowly past a clearing on my left that was obscured by a wall of trees and bushes with giant, piercing thorns. There was no sign of property and I was really desperate so I pushed my bike through the wall, slicing my legs in multiple places in the process, and pitched my tent. In the picture, the road is just on the other side of the trees, maybe five feet away. I slept well regardless. 

However, the next morning quickly descending into the worst start of my day this entire trip. I woke up, packed my things, and pushed my bike over the bush wall, only to realize that my front tire was flat. Again. You'd think that I would have made the connection the night before that bike tires and thorns don't mix well, but I was really tired. Give me a break. 

I tried to pump the tube to see where the tear was. The valve exploded off when I attached my pump. I took out a new tube. My pump shattered when I tried to use it. In that moment, I truly hated the world. Thankfully, the man who lived across the street saw me struggling and offered to drive me into town. Hallelujah!

But the celebrations were very short-lived when I found out that there was no bike shop in town. I tried fruitlessly to fix my pump for a while, even enlisting the help of a hardware store that insisted they could fix it. No deal. Then I realized that this town was part of a small network transit system; buses run through every hour and take residents to the next town over which had a bike shop. Of course, the bus had just come when I realized that so I waited another hour for it to return. In town, I pumped my tire full of air and was finally on the road, five hours after waking up. It seems a lot more expedient when I write about it, but living through it was so slow. 

I reached Bellingham, WA that night and stayed with a lovely Warmshowers host name Kai. I had a lot of fun there. Not too much happened in the city though so there's nothing to report. 

Yesterday, I set out from Bellingham and reached the US border in about two hours. There I was subjected to the harshest interrogation of my life. After I told her what I was doing, the border agent refused to believe that I wasn't entering Canada to blow it to smithereens. She probed me for every single detail about my trip: everywhere I'd stayed, people I met, places I saw. She insisted on looking through the pictures on my camera and then went so far as to demand that I hand over my phone so she could read my text conversations. I don't think that was standard procedure, but I was playing it really cool, just doing what she asked and answering all of her questions so I could be on my way. After half an hour of questioning, I was finally allowed into Canada. 10 miles in, I realized I had illegally snuck pepper spray into the country. So take that, Border Patrol!

I'm in Vancouver now. I met a great guy named Ron in a park downtown yesterday. We chatted for a while and he showed me around the city and offered to let me sleep in his extra room for the night. I'm going to be in Vancouver for the next couple of days so more pictures will be added as I take them. For now, here's the view from Ron's balcony.