Alaska Trip - Day 15

We began the day early- I woke up at 5:45am local time. After breakfast on the run, we went through Whistler, which recently hosted a lot of the 2010 Winter Olympic events. In the middle of town- in the middle of the street, in fact- we saw a black bear about 50 yards ahead of us. That was a bit surprising, but I have noticed it is not as big as deal anymore to spot a bear.

After a stop at Starbucks in Squamish to use their free wi-fi and enjoy a tasty beverage, we continued the winding and scenic Sea to Sky Highway to Vancouver, just as the morning rush hour was winding down.

We stopped in Vancouver briefly to get some water, but we did see some of the city. I noticed a lot of nice vehicles driving around town. If I remember correctly, Vancouver is one of the wealthiest cities on the planet.

Soon we were heading south, out of the mountains for a bit, to the U.S.-Canadian border. We waited in line for over an hour to cross the border, but only got a couple questions from the border guard, so it was relatively painless.

The interstate down to Seattle was busy, but not nearly as busy as the city itself. Although we were in the city in the early afternoon, the traffic was horrible. We made one stop, close to downtown, to Boom Records, a cheap record store I had bought stuff online from a few times. From what I saw, Seattle is incredibly unique, and just a cool place in general.

Both Vancouver and Seattle are similar, of course, and both are places I would love to live, but realistically I know that will never happen. Then again, today’s weather was perfect. There were clear skies and highs in the 70s along the coast. That may have influenced my perspective of the two cities.

Seattle was difficult to escape from, but once we did we moved along quickly on Interstate 90. We headed west through the Cascade Mountains, and then made a stop to Cicely, er, Rosyln, Washington, the filming location for one of my all-time favorite TV shows, “Northern Exposure.”

It was cool to see a lot of the buildings filmed almost twenty years ago still in existence and near to their original form. We went to the gift shop, and I bought a rare Northern Exposure coffee mug. As it just so happens, today was also the Moose Festival in town, an event celebrating the show! There were actors from the show in town, but unfortunately we didn’t meet them because we were in a hurry (like the entire rest of the trip).

We then headed west to much drier country. It’s amazing how quickly the climate and landscape changed as we got past the Cascades. The temperature rose about 15 degrees in an hour.

We arrived in Spokane, Washington, about 9pm, and were wanting to stay in Couer d’ Alene, just across the border in Idaho, for the night, but every motel was booked solid due to a pow-wow, so we had to head back to Spokane to stay for the night.

We’re staying at a Motel 6. It’s nice to see affordable prices again for hotels. We also ate an extremely late dinner at Jack in the Box. Did you know they serve breakfast all day? Yay for Spokane.