either side of the 49th

From Bellingham, I drove Kirrin and Jeremy to Vancouver on Thursday.

First, we made New Zealand pikelets (like little pancakes), and chocolate chip biscuits (a crunchy version of the cookie). I should disclaimer the "we" by saying that Kirrin did most of the baking.

Again, we had a couple of options for the day. Given that the clouds were coating the mountains, we stayed down near sea level and wound our way through Lynden, Washington; the lovely little Dutch town where I spent some formative years. We drove by Mountain View; the church and neighborhood I grew up in. Then we headed toward downtown Lynden with it's Holland flair. We took a number of creative photos, but also had to have a classic windmill picture. It was rather strange being a tourist in my "hometown."

Since we all enjoy berries, I thought another good Pacific Northwest activity for the day would be raspberry picking. We headed out to a farm on the Pole Road, got our buckets and started picking on row 50. Kirrin and I both picked about a pound each, but Jeremy only managed to bring in 1/2 pound. The woman selling the berries figured he must have eaten the other 1/2 pound! They were very sweet and juicy and a great snack for the rest of the day in the car.

After doing a loop around the greater Lynden area, we headed off toward the 49th parallel; better known as the United States-Canadian border. The Peace Arch is a great tourist crossing given it's grand "arch" of an icon symbolizing North American peace and good will. We stayed long enough to take some pictures and short enough to evade most of the rain that infiltrated both countries for the rest of the afternoon.

And, we also snapped a photo of the three of us standing on the "fence" between countries. For two folks from the island-country of New Zealand, it was the first time they crossed over into a new place by car. For a dual-citizen who has hopped over the border and back on a number of occasions, this was the first time I had to park at the border and walk into the building so the Kiwis could get their passport stamped (and let me tell you, the Canadian entry stamp at this crossing is better than any of the Canadian ones I have in my passport)!

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting lost in Surrey, getting a map, and finding the hospitality of Kirrin's relatives in Port Moody. I spent suppertime with them before heading back to Bellingham for the weekend. Don't worry, I'll be picking up another section of their story next week, though, when we head back to Seattle!