Coming to America

Ever drive for 15 hours straight? I have! Yesterday I drove from Port Coquitlam to Alameda - 7am - 10pm. Whaaaahoowwww!

While I wouldn't jump up on a Sunday morning and say "Let's go driving until Monday!" it didn't totally suck. And it was pretty much stress free, thanks to constant tapping of simulated wood and quiet conversations with The Universe.

I wondered if driving through the state of Washington would be as stupid as the last time I suffered through that state, and it almost was.

There wasn't as much traffic this time, but there was a stupid amount of law enforcement all up everyone's ass. From the time I crossed the border 'til I rolled into Oregon, I counted 11 highway patrol, most of them handing out tickets.

Eleven. At 9am on a Sunday morning. What a bunch of shitty bitches.

The other stupid thing? Almost no road signs telling you which cities are coming up & how many miles to them. Because evidently no one in Washington is going anywhere, so what the fuck do they care if there are other towns somewhere and how long it might take to get to them?

You drive along and after a while you see a sign telling you "Entering [name of town]." Surprise!

And like always, Washingtonians are the worst drivers in the Pacific Northwest, possibly North America.

Just as slow and oblivious as Jenna Bush - camping in the fast lane going 50, yammering on a cell phone. See above about not going anywhere.

Even with all the signs that say "Slower traffic keep right" - they stay locked in the fast lane, holding up drivers from everywhere else in the world. It would seem they don't know how to read, either.

Oregon isn't much better when it comes to road signs, but the drivers are better, I saw only one highway patrol, and Portland has Voodoo Doughnuts - well worth the detour. It's just five minutes off Highway 5. Get the bacon maple bar - you'll thank me.

Driving to Canada Hurts

Holy jesus am I tired. Getting to Canada has been a marathon on top of a triathlon on top of a decathlon while wearing ice skates and a lead suit.

We did the drive in two days, stopping in Oregon for a couple of nights to let the kids (and me) enjoy a crate-free day. It'd have been better to spend a week between legs of the trip - the second one almost killed me.

We left Bend at 9:15am and didn't get to Port Coquitlam until almost 11pm. The entire goddamn state of Washington had endless, bumper-to-bumper traffic, without any reason. No accidents, no fifty-car pileups, just a bunch of slow Sunday-driving turds flushed onto the roadways all at the same time.

Then we got to the border. For over an hour we crawled slowly toward the checkpoint where we expected the car to be thoroughly inspected and all our paperwork closely examined. Not so much.

At the first checkpoint we were waived through without a glance from the burly dude in black kevlar. At the second checkpoint, a lovely recent high school graduate politely asked us if we had any firearms, gifts for Canadians or more than $10K in cash with us. She never looked past our passports or asked about pets, booze, drugs or plants/vegetables.

Once past her checkpoint, we had to go inside so I could get a visa/work permit/visitor permit - I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to have and they don't seem to know either, but after a relaxing 20-minute wait, I got a pretty piece of official paper stapled into my passport and we were on our way.

We tried to sleep that night, but the cats were wigged out, meowling through the house as if to ask Where the hell is our shit? Where the hell are we? Why the hell did you hold us captive in that car for over 13 hours?

Overall, it was a day I'd never ever like to repeat. Not until they build a bridge over the state of Washington so I never have to sit through that bullshit again.