Thanksgiving trip to Vancouver

So this year for Thanksgiving, I went to Vancouver, BC, where it was not Thanksgiving and I had no relatives. Lisa had a discount at a nice downtown hotel, so we went up for 4 days to explore the city and hang out. We ate lots of good food, drank lots of yummy cocktails, and walked around Stanley Park. Got to see Jill and Angie and Alex. Got to try on lots of nice shoes (and not buy them). Got to ponder what it would take to decide to move to Canada (not much). Saw the lovely "Girl in a Wetsuit" statue at Stanley Park. Went for a hike in Lynn Canyon Park and walked across the suspension bridge there.





It was all quite lovely until we tried to drive home on Sunday afternoon. It was snowing in Vancouver, but not sticking, so I thought we'd be fine. But as soon as we got south of the city there was more and more snow on the ground, worse and worse road conditions on 99. Until it was downright scary, there were inches of snow and ice packed onto the road, no plows in sight, and my car with bad used tired and sticky brakes. I was sure we were going to slide into a ditch (like many other people already had) at any moment. I had been quite determined to make it home that night to see Rebecca, who'd gone to Portland for a dance and was waiting for me at my house. And when it got bad, I thought we could at least make it to Bellingham. But no, it was awful and we didn't even make it over the border. We stopped in the tiny BC coastal town of White Rock, which I only knew about because I'd had lunch there with Ellen Stanley last year on my way to the Vancouver Folk Fest. Found a little motel off the highway and the one pub that was open, took a walk along the beach at night in the blowing snow.


In the morning we set out for home, had a hellish drive to Bellingham on still-unplowed roads, and then stopped at Les Schwab to buy chains (good thing someone knows what to do with these things... I'll give you a hint: it wasn't me). Got some bagels and coffee, got back on the road, and promptly found the road conditions south of Bellingham to be fine and then chains to be not only unnecessary, but annoying. So we stopped to take them off, one got stuck, it was no fun. Then maybe ten miles later of course the road got bad again, the snow was coming down harder and sticking. So on they went. So with all that, it probably took us about 4 hours to get to Seattle from the border, and then it snowed on and off between Seattle and Portland. I thought I moved to the Northwest to get away from this kind of thing!!

But we made it home in one piece by 7pm (only about 8 hours for what should have taken less than 5) and had Thai food with Rebecca.

The next day Willa (whose favorite city in the world in Vancouver, because she can stay awake for the whole drive and because there's a great yellow water slide there) told me she thought it really wasn't a good idea to drive to Canada in the winter, and maybe I should only go back in the summertime. Yeah.

Now I have to decide what to do for Christmas....