The plan to visit Vancouver Island was scrapped based on the less than encouraging weather forecast…going from snow in Edmonton to rain on the island didn’t seem like enough of a step up. Instead we headed south through wine country and spent the night at Hayne’s Point in Osoyoos, B.C. before crossing the border into the U.S.

We expected that it might be a bit of a slow crossing taking the camper (and Chester) across the border but that part of our day actually went pretty smoothly. A very friendly border guard had a nice chat with Chester, gave his health certificate a quick glance and it was clear that he wasn’t going to be any issue. We did, however, have to give up 1.5 tomatoes and nearly all of Chester’s dogfood. Our real excitement came once we got into Washington; the border guard directed us to a “Big R” store where we could buy new food for Chester so we decided to make a quick stop there. Wow…neither Dave nor I are big shoppers but this store was our heaven! There is no equivalent to it in Canada…something you might get if you took MEC, Canadian Tire, and Peavey Mart and squashed them altogether. It was huge and we killed more than a little time browsing the fishing gear, admiring the baby chicks (all sorts of crazy breeds) and wondering whether we had room for an inflatable kayak in out camper (we decided we didn’t).

Shortly thereafter, we thought we should take care of our “connectedness” and set ourselves up with a U.S. data plan. We found an AT&T store in Omak, WA and attempted to get set up. We were told it would be no problem to get a hotspot plan for just $50 plus a $25 activation fee. We paid for it and proceeded to wait, wait and then wait some more…no matter what the agent could not seem to get it to work. After an hour, I decided to go relieve poor Chester; he had been cooped up in the truck for some time and could use a little walk and some water…it was an eventful walk. I’m not sure if I just attract such characters or if Omak is full of them but the folks I met definitely fit the bill:

1. I try not to judge by appearance but crazy #1 was in full camo and had a beard to his waist. He seemed friendly, though, and wanted to pet my “pretty dog” so how could I resist? As he petted Chester, he proceeded to tell me about his dogs…a chow and a pit bull that would get into horrendous fights…he would need to separate them and, during the last scrap, one had snapped and taken the tip of his finger clear off. He showed it to me proudly. He commented on how it was a very clean cut and had healed well. There was something that looked like a bone tip at the end but he told me it was actually a squashed type of  finger nail. I actually got to stand there say “huh, would you look at that!” and he seemed pleased by my reaction.
2. I met crazy #2 back in front of the AT&T store as Chester was having some water beside the camper. Seeing the camper, he asked if I was a “traveler”. I said yes and enthusiastically shared our plan to travel through to Mexico and Central America as we worked our way down to Panama. He told me very seriously that I needed to keep going – it was critical that I get to the southern hemisphere as quickly as possible because the radiation is killing us. Everyone in North America is doomed because we are all in the radiation plume from Fukushima. “Our government is lying to us! It’s killing us and you just need to ask any scientist who isn’t in bed with the CIA! Your government is lying too! You think you can trust Harper? You can’t trust him either!” (incidentally, I never claimed I could trust Harper but that was apparently beside the point). Of course, Phil (I learned his name later) wasn’t going to leave the country, though. His plan was to head for some part of Florida near Key West that had also escaped the radiation plume. He may not have put this plan into action though because he was apparently there to pay his monthly cell phone bill…

After some time with Phil, I began to make frantic faces to Dave inside the AT&T to rescue me but when I finally made eye contact with him, it was clear that he may be the one in need of rescue. I escaped and went inside. Apparently (after nearly two hours of attempting to initiate the SIM card), the AT&T guy had determined the plan was not compatible with our phone but was refusing to return our $75 because “that’s not possible with the prepaid card”…some raised voices ensued…there may have been a threat to call the police…we did eventually leave and get our money back (sans data plan).

I attempted to calm Dave by assuring him that this was really rather minor (after all, the radiation is killing us). A rather Zen Dave suggested we pick up some groceries (and some liquor) and find a campsite. While I did initially attempt to lead us to snow-closed passes, we did find a rather lovely campsite beside Lake Chelan. We plan on spending a few days here, chillin’ in Chelan.