Friday July 8, Bellingham, WA…USA

Yes, we are back in USA tonight, and it has been a very good day. This morning we woke to rain on the roof, and 11 degrees. Time to put the jeans back on and put the heater on for awhile.

It was still raining when we left, heading west along the motorway but as the mountains opened out, the sky lightened and the sun came out. We drove through a wide fertile valley with all sorts of cropping and the occasional dairy farm.

Then it was a 45 min stop start process as we queued at border control at Abbotsford to return to the States. Unfortunately they took our 3 oranges bought in Canada….even though they were grown in USA…..can’t quite work that one out!

Picked up a few bread rolls just through the border and took a scenic route into Bellingham, stopping for some lunch on the way. Then onto the info centre in town to see where we could hopefully get the windscreen replaced. Delightful lady got out the yellow pages and put me onto the company “ that she uses”, and it was a goodie. Louies Auto Glass Company had been in business for 80 years and can understand why with the service they gave. They had racks of windscreens in stock and they helped us organise with our insurance company to deal with the claim, then we drove into the workshop and before long 2 guys were dealing with it while we had a cup of coffee in the van and caught up on emails on their wifi. Heard about a good State Park on the coast just out of town, but rang them while we were waiting and they were completely booked out for the weekend. Maybe it will have to be Walmart! It was after 5 by the time the glue had set and we left with such a bright clean windscreen.

Headed out to Fairhaven, the historic part of town which we had read about, a really good call. A really thriving area with old multi story red brick buildings and a thriving retail area with a multitude of eating places. First call was Village Books, a three storied book store which we had read about in Lonely Planet, and it was great, could have spent hours in there. I was really happy as found a great photography book! The late sun was shining as we sauntered around, such a shame that most of the shops were closed.

Found a nice seafood restaurant and I enjoyed a clam chowder followed by crab cakes, and Ian had halibut.

We were walking back to the van, thinking about where we might park for the night when we noticed two young guys with a football. On checking them out they were rugby players, and Tito was a 16 year old Samoan lad, born in USA and now playing for the national U19’s. He is off to Sth Africa with the National Team on Monday. They were talking to an older guy, Craig, and when we mentioned that we looking for somewhere to park for the night, he said park here. He is a sports therapy doctor and in fact his carpark was just behind us. So here we are, a great spot for the night.