Vancouver Canada

O’Canada, which completes my border to border ride from Mexico to Canada and Vancouver, is a beautiful city to see. Check it out, they had a festival in my honor, ok, maybe not for me, but the International Jazz Festival was going on and once again, timing was everything. Well, it didn’t start out that way since we’re on a ferry schedule to get to places around here, so we were 5 minutes late for the ferry, the could have come back to get us. That wasn’t the case so we had an hour and half wait before the next one came. I say we because although Ann had a ride planned with a group of women that she had invited me along on, most of the women backed out…yep, must have been me. Well, since that ride fell thru, she offered to show me Canada so if that little Honda can keep up, that’d be great so we decided to head north this morning. You know the real reason she rode with me though, to get out of the country while the Gay Pride ride was going on…yep, that’s why I’m gone. Anyway, since we missed the ferry and had some time to kill, checked out the Port Townsend city which was a pretty cool little place. Most of the old building in the city has been preserved as well as many of the houses so many of the buildings were pretty neat to peruse. Once we finally got a ferry ride, it was off to the Whidbey Island, still Washington, but did you know it is the longest island in the country, Long Island is the other one. Well, the island was a great ride and got to see Deception Pass, only after stopping at the bar with the same name to have a little lunch and checkout the walls of dollar bills – of course I have to hang one and you can see the ‘Where-is-Webby’ bill and the wall it’s hung on so if you ever make a trip thru, stop in and see my bill. The lunch was ok, but a little deceiving…good one.

The rest of the island was a great ride, but first had to check out the pass and bridge Checkout the currents running under the bridge, there are warnings for the boaters not to go against the currents and they are always different, the currents that is, because it depends on whether the tide is coming in or going out. Apparently a lot of boats have perished thru there trying to go against a current or not being aware of which way it was moving at the time. Anyway, some nice viewing so got plenty of pictures. Time to finish the island and head to Canada and I’ll tell you, the Canadian border was much nicer to see than the Mexican…sorry, but it is and you can see for yourself. A peace park at the border and you don’t see nothing like that at the Mexican border, only machine guns, dogs, walls and fences to keep the people out. One nice thing, I can read the signs because Canada is a language I understand, English. Did have a bit of a problem though, all the road signs were marked in km/h and you can see on this 2006 bike it only reads mph – oh well, as long as you know the conversion that 1 km/h is .6 mph, that’s easy math…ok, that’d be 100km/h means 60mph, but I still like seeing a speed sign that had 100 on it. Yea, if I would have gotten pulled over, I would have had an excuse, right? Wrong, but didn’t see any Canadian troopers…maybe that’s because their all Mounties on horses? Here I got to straddle the border so which half of me do you think is in which country, yep my heads in Canada…well, wait a minute, is that right?

Well, as you can tell we found a party going on so had to check it out and I could tell in a short period of time, this is definitely a city I want to come back to and share with someone, it’s beautiful and friendly and they have some pretty interesting advertising. See the advertisements in the men’s bathroom? - One with a young guy and a bunch of beautiful women around him for a breath freshener, and Viagra right next to it, only in Canada. While the bands were finishing up, decided it was time to ride along the Sunshine Coast, as they call it, and road as far as the road would take us, Horseshoe bay, from there you’d have to take another ferry, but didn’t have time to go to Vancouver Island so that’ll have to wait for another trip. Oh, yea, my return visit to Vancouver, because than I can take whosever along to Victoria to see that beautiful Canadian city…well, have at least heard it’s a beautiful Canadian city.

Oh, while downtown, checkout the t-shirts I found. Thought about getting one as a gift for someone I know, but hey as long as a picture says a thousand words, that’s good enough in this case. That also had me thinking about the saying, ‘Actions speak louder than words’. Why is it then we ignore the actions believing the words someone is telling us instead of reading the actions and doing what we should when those actions are screaming at us, maybe because we want to believe? Yep, more therapy. Tomorrow, get to head east and hopefully take the great weather I’ve had on the west coast with me. Canadian Pictures.