Astoria, OR

Thursday, October 3, 2024

The minute we pull the shades in our RV, we could be parked anywhere in the world and it all feels like “home.” In the case of Tsawwassen RV Resort (where we camped last night after the late-night ferry from Vancouver Island), that was a good thing. This RV park was nothing to sing about, that’s for sure! This run-down campground looked more like a trailer park than a campground for travelers.

In any event, it served its purpose for us last night which was to give us a place to camp overnight near the ferry terminal on mainland British Columbia. The four of us woke up & headed out around 9:00am this morning with a full day of driving ahead of us.

Before we hit the road, we stopped at Tim Hortons one last time for Timbits, bagels, and coffees. “I gotta say,” Andi commented as we drove away from the coffee chain, “I’m a Tim Hortons convert. Quick service, and their coffee is actually pretty good.”

Personally, I was glad to leave the Land of Tim Hortons behind — my waistliine can’t take anymore temptation!

We drove for 30 minutes from Tsawassen to Surrey, B.C., reaching the Canada/United States border via the Peace Arch Border Crossing. As we approached the patrol gate, Andi asked me if I knew where the receipt was for the salmon we caught & had processed in Campbell River. Shoot! I was almost positive I threw it away yesterday not realizing we might need it when we crossed the border.

I had a pit in my stomach about the fish, remembering all the hoopla we endured the past few days getting the fish processed and picked up before leaving Vancouver Island. Now if it got consifcated from us at the border beause I didn’t save the receipt, that would really stink!

Andi pulled our RV up to the border patrol window and presented the officer with our passports. The officer began to question us about the type of food we had in our RV, and I immediately knew we were going to be inspected. We’ve crossed the border with our RV several times in the past, and they never asked us this many questions. Usually the questions are about where we’ve traveled, how long we’ve been visiting Canada, or if we’re carrying firearms in the vehicle.

Sure enough, the officer gave us an orange slip and told Andi to park the RV near the side of the building. A different officer met us outside the RV and escorted us into the border control building. I was sweating bullets! I have no idea why — we weren’t hiding anything — but the idea of agents rummaging through our RV made me nervous.

Inside the building, a third officer pointed to an agricultural officer standing at the end of a long counter. This border control officer had a huge smile on his face, and immediately made me feel at ease. He explained that he represents the agricultural department for the United States and would be checking our RV this morning to see if we were carrying any products that could be harmful to plants, animals, and people in our country.

For the next 20 minutes or so, the ag officer ran through a pamphlet of information about agricultural hazards. He thoroughly explained why firewood, pet food, chicken and eggs, and certain types of vegetables and produce could be carrying bugs or harmful bacteria.

The only thing we had from the no-no list were bell peppers, apples, and mandarin oranges. “Well, you won’t have those things for long,” the agent said. “Let’s go take a look.”

The agricultural agent followed us inside the RV and opened the refigerator. Luckily, I had all the produce together in one drawer so it was easy for him to locate the peppers, apples, and oranges. Some apples that still had the sticker on them were OK to keep if they were grown in the USA or Canada; he only took the ones grown in New Zealand.

“If you can eat these peppers before I am done searching,” he told Aden, “you can keep them. If you can’t, they’re coming with me.”

Aden feverously munch of a few snack-size bell peppers, but he wasn’t able to eat them in time. “Sorry, you weren’t fast enough,” the officer said, taking the peppers with him.

The ag officer’s parting advice was to travel with a handwritten list of all the food we have in our RV. Then, present the list to the officer at the border crossing. This declares in written form what a person is bringing into a country so you can’t be fined for transporting prohibited goods.

I shook like a leaf for at least 30 minutes after we left the border crossing and were safely driving through Washington. I just hate the feeling of being in trouble, even though the officer couldn’t have been nicer during the whole encounter. I felt like I’d just got a speeding ticket, even though we didn’t receive any sort of fine today.

Andi and I always warn Tory and Aden that our RV could be inspected at a border crossing. It hadn’t happened to us until today, but it was a good experience for all of us to learn what can & can’t be transported.

In our original travel itineary for this roadtrip, Andi and I planned to enter the United States through the Port Angeles, Washington Border Crossing and spend a few days exploriing the area in and around Olympic National Park. We visited this national park in 2019, and it’s one of our favorite places we’ve ever traveled.

However, we ended up spending a few more days on Vancouver Island that we’d originally planned, so we had to cut Washington out of our trip itineary. I really would have loved to re-visit Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, but it wasn’t in the cards this time. Today, we drove north to south through the entire state from Blaine, Washington to Astoria, Oregon. It took us five hours to do so.

Nothing exceptionally interesting happened during our long drive day. Andi and I took turns driving a few times to help break up the windshield time while Tory and Aden watched hours of television on their iPhones. Both of the kids were glad to be back in the United States so their data usage was no longer capped at 2GB per day.

We reached Astoria, Oregon around 6:00pm and found one of the last available campsites at Fort Stevens State Park just outside town. This is a huge state park with nearly 500 campsites and a variety of recreational activities. Minutes after we arrived, we saw a herd of elk standing in one of the campsites which startled Andi as he came around the side of the RV! We hardly saw any wildlife during our month-long stay in British Columbia, so seeing this massive animal standing in front of him took him by surprise.

The last thing we felt like doing was cooking dinner, but we needed to eat after driving all day. Andi grilled pork grillers and asparagus on the grill for us. Then, we all took turns taking showers in the RV. We were in desperate need after a few days of camping without hook-ups.

The four of us finished the evening watching episodes of Young Sheldon on Netflix. This is one of my favorite times of the day when we all curl up and watch TV together — something we never do in our everyday homelife. Tory is especially witty in the evenings, and has Andi and I rolling in laughter with the things she says. RV travel with a teen & tween is different than it used to be, but it’s a lot of fun. There’s been a few times I’ve missed seeing the kids excited for things in nature they used to love, but it’s also been fun sharing different experiences witht them now that they are both older.

Hooray! We’re in the USA! Tomorrow, we’re excited to explore Astoria — the oldest city in Oregon, and the oldest American settlement west of the Rocky Mountains.