The best journey takes you home....

Gazing over to Canada.....

North Washington has a Canadian vibe. Gone are the daily morning gunshot alarm clocks, the "posted no trespassing" signs on locked gates are few and far between, and there is a country calm in the air. People seem more at ease and are more polite. We have become stealth camping ninjas as almost every day we are moving further North. This brings a whole new difficulty to the trip...of course. However I assume funding for park and forest up here is nil, or it's still a little too early. We have been successful staying at day use areas or trail head parking lots with no issue. We had a good, quiet sleep off a forestry logging road and one night in a quiet riverside campground for free!

We spent 2 days hiking Oylmpic National Park. These hikes are more like nature walks but had some spectacluar old trees covered with moss and swollen emerald green rivers, the clearest I have ever seen.

Paul is a landmarker, who can't resist having a picture with the World's Largest whatever it is. He has a facebook page "The Paul Kossak Project" that displays all of his monuments.

Benny is working on increasing his hiking distance. He's now up to .5 mile...good grief how priorities change when you don't work!

Port Angeles Washington is where we catch the ferry across into Victoria. We stayed here for a few days to finish off our United States portion of our trip. We are feeling excited to get back, nervous about the transition from States touring to Canadian touring. It's uncertain exactly what is to come. With our last $50 of American cash we treated ourselves to an oyster feast and some delicious local IPA beers.

Below: breakfast picnic area

We met these two young guys that have just began their 1 1/2 year cycling trip to Argentina. When we met them they had been on the road 13 days. We were so excited to gift them our "America the Beautiful" park pass. You can follow their journey at usonabike.wordpress.com.

The Tragically Hip playing over CBC radio, eye contact and smiling faces, the Canadian Flag, the loonie and toonie....ah it's good to be home. While we enjoyed the hospitality of our neighbors there is such a different feeling in Canada.

Our first few moments in Canada.

We have a rough plan to stay in and around Victoria for a month. We have family visiting and couldn't be more excited. However navigating and living in a van in a city always poses its own challenges. The necessity to exist "low key" moving daily from different sleep areas and parks, always feeling like your doing something sneaky even if its something not shady at all like using a washroom at a McDonald's and not buying anything. Or learning to be okay with all of the above.

The weather is ideal and we are enjoying seeing different parks and areas of the city. My parents are first to visit. Sending love from the road Paul, Leanne and Benny