Peace!

After we left Vancouver, it was a short 1 hr drive to the US Border in Blane, WA. Here are some of the views on the way out of town.

 After arriving at the border crossing at Blane, Washington, this was our view. The wait time to cross the border was between 60 and 80 minutes depending on which sign you wanted to believe. Suffice to say, we sat a long time. When we got out turn for our "border inspection", the border agent discovered that we were unable to make the turn out of the border inspection area because we were too long, even though we were in the RV lane. The car lanes had a straight shot out onto the freeway. The RV lane had two 90 degree turns immediately after the inspection booth. The agent had to give us a permission slip to go around the complex through the truck inspection area so that we could get back out on the road. Like they say, Real Men of Genius work there.

After crossing the border, the first stop we made was the gas station. For a small town, Blane has a ton of gas stations. It seems that many British Columbia residents stop and get gas before going across the border. Gas in Blane is in the upper $3.00 a gallon range. Gas in British Columbia is in the lower to mid $5.00 range. In fact, Vancouver has the most expensive fuel we have encountered the whole trip.

After fueling up, we stopped near Peace Arch park on the border to eat some lunch. After lunch, we explored this beautiful park. The Peace Arch is directly on the border between the U.S and Canada. Half of the arch is in one country, and half is in the other.

After admiring the Arch, we walked around the Peace Gardens and admired the beauty.

After walking around the gardens, a path lead up a hill. We walked up the path and found the towns of Douglas, BC and Blane, WA literally are right on the border, and people live within feet of the border on both sides. In fact, there are no fences at all along the border, and unofficially people from both sides of the border can walk right across to the other side. It would be very strange to have a neighbor from another country on the other side of the street. The edge of the street in the picture below is "the border." No 40 foot tall fences, no machine guns, no helicopter gunships circling overhead. Very different from living in Texas and visiting a border there.