Day 1 - The Start of The Whole Adventure

My task: Make it from my home in Kennewick, WA, to Pasco, WA, to take the Greyhound to Bellingham, WA (with a transfer in Seattle, WA), and then utilizing local public transportation companies, sucessfully walk across the border into Canada, and end the day at Vancouver International Airport.

Kennewick to Pasco
Pretty uneventful. It was pretty foggy out at 6:30AM. I hadn't been awake in that long, so I didn't know if that was the first day it'd been this foggy, or if it'd been like that for weeks. Not that I'm complaining or anything. But then again, I'm the one who thinks 9:00AM is too early.

Pasco to Seattle
This is really where my test began. I've never actually been on a Greyhound Bus before. Public transportation? That's my bread and butter! I'm the king when it comes to that. But Greyhound is taking it to a whole different level. On Greyhound's website, they state that it's highly recommened to show up early for your departure time. So, being an hour early had it's pros and cons. Pros, I had a better chance of grabbing my seat. (For those who don't know, Greyhound's system is that you can buy a ticket, but thats DOES NOT mean you'll have a seat for sure. First come, first serve...) Cons, I got bored pretty quick. And I mean quick. The Greyhound office at the Pasco Terminal doesn't open till 7:30AM, so watching the agent go in and out of the booth started to annoy me a little. But, what can you do? So, at 7:33, he finally opened. As soon as that booth gate went up, all 7 or 8 of us who were there so far made a mad dash for him. But, luckily, order ensued and I'm glad to say there were no fistfights or anything. As I waited my turn to get my baggage checked, I kept remarking to myself just how amazing it is that nearly every passenger was buying their tickets right beforehand. I mean, you can save like 50% (or maybe more) if you just buy the ticket 21 days in advance. I know people sometimes have the urgent need to get going right then and there, but a little foresight can go a long ways. Just saying. So, baggage checked and ready to go, I stood in line, waiting for the bus to show up from Stanfield, OR. While we were waiting, I chatted a little with the 4 people in front of me. I hate to use the stereotype, but imagine the type of person that sits at the front of the public bus and always has to chat with the driver... well, that was them. But, don't get me wrong. They were very nice, and I did enjoy chatting with them. I guess they sure enjoyed chatting with me, because somehow I got suckered in to helping the one woman (who told me her name multiple times, but I still can't remember it cause it's such a weird spelling, so we'll call her "L") load her carry-on bags up into the bus and up into the overhead bins. She was pretty appreciative for that. (I later found out that she has C.T.S. and diabetes, so I think she deffly needed the help.) Around Sunnyside or so, I grabbed down her bag of Cheetos for her, and I mentioned that I worked for Frito-Lay. She seemed astonished when I told her I had no huge interest in all the chips I want to eat. I tried explaining how 15 months or so of smelling them had kinda turned me to the other side where I don't like chips as much, but she had a pretty hard time believing that one.

Seattle to Bellingham
I didn't like the driver on this Greyhound as much as I liked the driver from the Pasco-Seattle bus. Again, pros and cons. The first driver was polite and thorough in his work, but he was slow at it. The second driver, he was very efficient. But he came off as a bit of an a-hole. This time around, I ended up having a couple different seatmates. The first one was Rita. I remember that she said she was from Olympia and she was headed for Bellingham to see her husband (I think?) before he headed back to Afghanistan. She was nice, but she seemed too much like one of those girls who never really phased themselves out of high school. In Everett, when we cleared some seats out, she moved back. The next one, I don't know who he was, but I think he'd just been released from jail based on how he was acting. (Another Greyhound fact. A lot of the time, the prison system will release prisoners and give them a Greyhound ticket and some pocket change to get home. But, you can spot the ones who've been in the system for quite a few years and don't quite seem to understand how modern society works, so they sit rather quietly just watching the front window the whole time.) Finally, in Mt. Vernon, some other guy sat next to me, but I gave him a glare (not intentionally, I was trying to look out the other window) and so he ended up moving to the other side of the aisle. Can't say I hated that! Lol.

Bellingham to the Border
I departed the Greyhound at Fairhaven Transit Center in Bellingham. Very hurridly, I rushed inside to find a place to break a bill. See, in all the excitement, I had stupidly forgotten to bring a dollar for my bus fare to use the Whatcom Transit Authority buses. Luckily, that was a fast process, and double luckily, the bus I needed had a stop not more than 50 feet from where I'd gotten off the Greyhound. So, that mission accomplised, I waited for the bus to show up. By about 4:00PM or so, I was at Bellingham Station in downtown Bellingham. This was VERY good, because the next bus I needed to take, the 70X to Blaine, was scheduled for departure at 4:20PM. It was on that next bus, the 70X, that I started to notice the people starting at me. And I understood why. I'm sitting at the front of this bus with two full-sized suitcases, plus my bursting-at-the-seams backpack, and I was headed to Blaine, WA, of all places. I guess it was a bit odd. But then again, so is wanting to walk into Canada, so there you go I guess. The bus driver on the 70X was very professional about it all, and was easily able to answer all my questions for me. (I really didn't need to ask any questions, since I'd already spent weeks researching and pouring over schedules and maps to make sure I would NOT get lost, but I just wanted a little reassurance.) So, at the very last stop in Blaine, I departed into completely unfamiliar territory. Of course, I knew where I needed to go, so it wasn't too big a deal. So, I started walking. But, guess what happened after I'd been walking for a little bit? I got pulled over by US Customs Agents! (No joke! A little side info might help. This previous Sunday night, 4 police officers were shot to death at a coffee shop in the Tacoma, WA, area, and they've been mounting a huge manhunt for him. So, of course, the border was on tight lockdown, and pretty much all law-enforcement in the PacNW is a little on-edge right now.) So, of course, they asked me some questions, and of course, I answered them, truthfully and without double-thinking. The one guy got a good laugh at my enthusiasm of walking across the border. I know they told their fellow Border Agents, because the rest of the way to the border, almost all of them gave me a smile or wave or laugh or something. It was kinda cool.

The Border to Vancouver International Airport
Without explaining the process too much, I was able to enter Canada without much hassle or delay. The Canadian Border Crossing has a much newer building than the one that was there the last time I crossed the border. Gotta say, it's pretty nice! And cozy inside. I prolly could have spent the night there, but I think that may be frowned upon. From the border crossing, I had to walk just a little bit to Exit 2, which is officially in Surrey, BC. From Exit 2, I just had to cross the overpass to the other side of the highway and my bus stop was right there at the corner of 8 Ave and King George Highway. Pretty easy! Though a bus that would go all the way to the border crossing would be nice I think. I guess they used to have one, but they stopped doing it for whatever reason. Oh well. I don't think I'm gonna go to Canada this way again, so I'm not too concerned. Now, if I lived here in Vancouver or Western Washington, I might be a little interested in something like that. But, anywhoo. The first bus I took in Canada was the 375 on TransLink (which is the service provider for all of the Greater Vancouver Metro Area). I was rather impressed with the bus. The fare box was pretty high tech. I assume a lot of the bigger metro areas have set-ups like that for higher efficency, but in my use of public transportation, I've never had to use a set up like that, so I thought it was pretty cool. The bus driver? Eh. He was friendly, but I've never seen a driver push a bus as hard as he did. $5 says he used to be a taxi driver. Lmao! The second bus I took was the 351. That bus... Imagine your normal, everyday, public bus. Now imagine a high-class coach bus. Mash the two together and you have that bus. I have never been so comfortable in a bus seat that I did on the 351. I swear, every seat is like YOU are in the driver's seat. (Except you aren't, it's just really comfy. Lol.) The bus driver was really friendly too. He thought it was pretty cool I was headed up to the Yukon, and remarked that he'd love to make it up there someday. Then we started talking about the show "Ice Road Truckers" which was pretty cool to meet as avid a fan of the show as I am. The 351 went all the way to Bridgeport Station, which is on the new SkyTrain Line, the Canada Line, which is my main access to the airport. As we were approaching it (and please don't laugh), I don't know why or where it came from, but I instantly thought to myself, "WOW! That station is freakin' spanky!" (Sometimes I think my mind has it's own personality. Lol!) But, when I got to the train platform, I saw why I had that random thought. It was spanky! Or you could call it rather nice looking and clean, or whatever you wanna go with. I think I'm sticking with spanky. And so, before I knew it, I was here at the airport. Oh, and the cool thing about the SkyTrain? They don't have a driver! It's fully automatic. The whoooolllleeee thing! Pretty cool, eh?

So, right now, I'm avoiding sleeping time. I could try really hard, but it's not working too well. So, my plan (at least for now) is to fight the sleep until 5AM, go about my planned morning routine as I already would have and then knock out as much for playing tourist as I can. And then, and only then, when I need to sleep, I'll come back here to the airport, take a nap for as long as my body (or the people of the airport) will let me, and then just pass the next night away this same way until I leave Wednesday morning northbound to Whitehorse, YT. And then... I'll just figure it out then. I'll be too excited to worry about sleep Wednesday morning, but I think I'm gonna crash really, really hard by that night.