Back in the US of A!

On Thursday, we continued driving south and a bit west to return to the US in western Washington state.

"Painted Hills"

We traveled along the Thompson River for a long part of our journey.

The mountains and the river were so pretty. The semi truck in the picture gives a bit of perspective.

There were places where there was irrigation being used -- just water to change the barren-looking land into crop land (the field on the other side of the river was growing hay). We were surprised at how uneven the ground was to have the irrigation equipment traveling over it.

This was at a pull off -- we stopped to wash the windshield so we could get better views!

The road was often pretty high above the river but at this point closer to river level.

We have seen so many tractor-trailers with many axles while in Canada and Alaska. Double trailers but then additional axles (I guess for carrying weight) too.

Construction with unmanned flagger...

Carl said that we could put a quarter (or a "loonie", Canadian $1) in the box to the right side to get the light to change more quickly!

Just more views...

... as we traveled along!

At this point, I think we were in Frasier Canyon -- The Milepost warned that there would be lots of curves and sharp drop offs...

... and 7 tunnels - including this one at 2300' feet, one of the longest in North America.

We stopped to look around at Hell's Gate Airtram...

A picture of the tram near the bottom of the canyon

A video of the tram:

There was this very strange device in the gift shop -- some of the labels on it indicated that it could be used to contact the power company in case of electricity failure! (My telephone company heritage husband always notices vintage phone equipment!)

Gracie in the parking lot at Hell's Gate Airtram

Another of the 7 tunnels, with yet another seen ahead

We came across the border just a little east of the Peace Arch -- turns out that this crossing is used by a lot of commercial vehicles (because Peace Arch cannot be). We saw a sign indicating that "passenger vehicles" could go over to the Peace Arch crossing, but we weren't sure that we counted as a "passenger vehicle" -- we knew we are not supposed to use the commercial lanes, but were concerned that passenger vehicles might be vehicles smaller than we are!

We followed the signs directing the appropriate lane for motorhomes/RVs to cross, and were ultimately directed to the far left lane. The border agent took our eggs (bummer!) and then we could leave -- but from the left lane, it was extremely challenging...

This is an overhead satellite view from Google Maps -- we were in the lane to the far right of the border agent gate area -- and they had Jersey barriers in front of the gate (the reddish line) -- cars could pull around the barriers just fine, and if we had been in the lane next the building, we may have been able to make it too. They sent us through the additional inspection area to the left in the picture, and from there we worked our way through the parking area and out onto the highway heading south. I'm glad Carl was driving and navigating the tight S-curves on the way!

Our first stop was for fuel -- hurrah for "cheap" American diesel. We were regularly paying over US$5/gallon in Canada and Alaska -- in Washington, it was *only* $3.73 with our TSD Open Roads fleet card.

We are near Blaine, Washington, staying at the Thousand Trails in Birch Bay.

So nice to be back in the US and to stay put for 6 nights!