Sure, I saw more farms than I could count and spent countless hours bathed in the aroma of fresh manure, but I survived. Funny thing about the back roads of small town America – they all look the same, and most of them don’t get cell service. I wasn’t smart enough to grab myself the map of Washington out of the car before I left the country, so I was very lost for most of yesterday afternoon. My superhuman sense of direction was all that came between me and Spokane several times, but I did discover you can easily (and quite scenically) get from the border to Bellingham without having to take the interstate. Also, Ferndale has a Sonic. Why didn’t I know this sooner? I was too lost to think about stopping, but next time we make a run for the border I’m requesting a detour.
My afternoon in America was actually pretty nice. I eventually made my way to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on enough snacks and trail mix to fill Lola’s bucket. I love, love, love Trader Joe’s. From there, I went to Target so I could pee and get a drink and wander around without an impatient Ed glancing at his watch/the contents of my cart every few minutes and grimacing. Target on a Thursday afternoon is actually very peaceful; it was fairly empty so I had fun taking my time in the aisles. My venture paid off with the CUTEST JACKET IN THE UNIVERSE, and also some shampoo and gum. I loaded up Lola to disguise my purchases, stopped for gas, and headed in the general direction of north.
While making my way through Bellingham, I found myself trapped on a freeway entrance and had to take the I5. It was probably the only time I ever though “well, now I’m going to die” in all seriousness on my scooter, but luckily people gave me a wide berth and I coasted along at stupid speeds behind a semi truck for three exits until I lost my nerve. I promptly got myself lost in rural Washington once more, and had to get back on the interstate once more for a few more exits before the border appeared. I don’t LIKE the interstate. Yes, I can scoot on it – but it’s really fucking stupid to do so. I won’t be doing THAT again any time soon; I’ll memorize the back road routes before I attempt it on Lola again.
The border both ways was funny, because the guards from both countries did not know what the fuck. A scooter? At my border crossing? Why I never! How unusual! I got a barrage of questions not for the safety of either country, but to find out what my deal was. I was allowed to go both to and fro with no issues though (hooray for my contraband bucket of snacks and kettle corn!), and I was back in Canada for the windy ride home.
Everything was fine until I hit Knight Street, where an asshole in a small red pickup truck almost sideswiped me while changing lanes, then yelled at me for existing. I was extremely tense over the near-miss, and I actually hurt my throat screaming obscenities at the driver. We told each other a variety of fuck off fuck you learn to fucking drive you almost hit ME so why don’t you go fuck yourself for an entire stoplight, amusing and/or scaring everyone around us. One more near miss (not as close this time) with an Oldsmobile, and 205.5km later Lola and I were safely at home to an Ed making sloppy joes for dinner (timed perfectly courtesy of Find My iPhone, which allowed him to track my every move – scaaaaary).
Oh, and I stopped at the Duty Free shop on my way into the US. I’d never been in the fancy new Peace Arch one, and I now know that I’ll never be in there again – I can’t AFFORD to be in there. Duty Free shops usually have a good array of stuff at lower prices, but this one was extremely high end – they had a 50% off special going on for some fancy purses, which started around $1200 (only $600 on sale!). They DID have a very (very) nice sprawling acre of booze, each with a themed wall made of glass and stone and the tears of noble children:
wall o' gin!
choose your backlit poison!
.. but as I don’t drink, it didn’t do much for me.
I did buy a small bottle of Jagermeister, though. I thought I might need it for the ride home – and I did, but only after I was in Vancouver city proper.
It was a good adventure, but I was awfully glad to be home.
delicious juice dot com 
Careful on those back roads next time – back in June I cycled from Vancouver to Seattle on a fundraising ride for the cancer agency, and I got shot at on a back road just south of Bellingham, from a pick-up truck!
You got SHOT AT?! Like, with a gun??? Does that actually happen? Holy shit, that’s terrifying!
Yep! From the blogpost I wrote at the time:
“We’d just passed an interesting section of road, featuring a gun range and a huge speedway with hundreds of people camping by the side of the road, and I was essentially riding by myself down a hill being a bit wussy and scared by the steepness and the speed. There were quite a few vehicles on the road, and many of them weren’t giving us much space (it was one of the few sections of road with no shoulder or bike lane at all), so I wasn’t entirely happy to hear another one approaching from behind. Then, just before the vehicle entered my field of vision, there was an almighty sharp BANG!!!!!!!. I was startled and jumped a bit, but didn’t lose control of my bike, and the vehicle (a gunmetal grey pickup with no license plate on the back) came blazing past me. I didn’t see the source of the noise, but my first thought was “OMG GUN!!!!”, because that’s totally what it sounded like. I was already thinking “or maybe his engine backfired, although that’s really unlikely when going down a big hill, or maybe he did it on purpose, although I don’t even know if that’s possible, or maybe…” when another cyclist came up alongside me from behind. She said “oh my god OH MY GOD, are you OK???!!!” I said that I was, and she said “that was REALLY. FUCKING. SCARY”, but then she rode off ahead of me before I could ask her what she’d seen that had freaked her out so much.
I still wasn’t sure what had happened, but then at camp that night a colleague told me that he’d seen someone at the gun range testing out a scope on a rifle by looking down it at a long line of riders in a really scary way. And then – the clincher – a volunteer who’d been riding one of the escort motorbikes told me the next morning that another rider had been hit with a pellet gun on the same stretch of road, and they’d had various reports of guns seen and shots fired (from vehicles and from the side of the road).”