This morning, I awoke with a shock around 4, the enormity of yesterday’s events and the gamble I took finally making a full impact.<\/p>\n
If I’d been turned away at the border yesterday, that would have been it for me regarding the US. Good luck ever coming in again, even for a day trip. But I did make it in for an extended period of time, with my rig, and as a pre-retirement age full-time RVer with no stable source of income. I set one hell of a precedent. Next time I want to go in under similar circumstances I can say that the folks in Sumas, WA, felt that I posed no threat and also proffer the paperwork yesterday’s agents told me to have on hand for future crossings. I opened the gateway to future American adventures and suddenly started a new chapter in my full-timing life. I expect that border crossings will always be difficult, at least until I retire, but this precedent is an excellent step for me and a good note on my file.<\/p>\n
So, I awoke to the smell of the sea, bright blue skies, and a radiant sun.<\/p>\n
I’ll pause here to say that I’m within Blaine city limits, about fifteen minutes from Pacific Border RV Park. I spent four months living on the border with Blaine and never once set foot in the town! Kind of funny in a way.<\/p>\n
For the first time in months, I bounced out of bed. I hadn’t realised how much my fear of crossing the border with the rig had been weighing me down. I spent the morning puttering around, walked to beach, and fiddled with my fresh water hook ups; not managing to get a leak-free set up.<\/p>\n
Being forty-five minutes away from Camping World and having never been there, I decided it was time to go!!! I hit the road around two, enjoying the drive down I-5. It reminded me of being in coastal Maine, except that the ocean was on the wrong side.<\/p>\n
Camping World was awesome!!! Sure, it has a lot of the crappy products you can find at Canadian Tire and Walmart, but they also had better quality options, plus tons of gadgets. I found a much higher grade of water hose, but, like all water hoses, it had crappy fittings. I ended up stopping at True Value on the way home and getting better fittings, which were easy to install<\/a>. I also found the fluorescent bulbs that I needed for the light fixture under my sink, something I have been hunting for for months. I’ve missed it so much!<\/p>\n I got in and installed my new water system: house-grade pressure regulator, brass quick connect, new hose, and a new high-grade washer at the city water intake on the rig. For the first time in two and a half years I hooked up my water and did not have to swear! Hooking up fresh water has always been the most onerous part of RVing and it is now much easier.<\/p>\n Tomorrow, I will make it a point to go for a long walk with my camera. I picked a great spot to hole up for a month!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning, I awoke with a shock around 4, the enormity of yesterday’s events and the gamble I took finally making a full impact. If I’d been turned away at the border yesterday, that would have been it for me regarding the US. Good luck ever coming in again, even for a day trip. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1070,635,11,5,3,16,998],"tags":[731],"class_list":["post-23554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blaine","category-north-america","category-personal","category-rving","category-travel","category-usa","category-washingon","tag-beaches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}