About Us


The Open Road Project exists to spread kindness and meet the needs of strangers. We travel in a 1979 GMC Vanguard named Lily. These are our stories.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Hello Seattle

After a brief sleep in the Ferry parking lot (why not take full advantage of our $16 overnight parking?) we awoke to a days drive into the United States. We got up and running pretty early in the morning, but as it turns out (from the border wait time) it wasn't early enough. We normally wouldn't get too worked up over a few hours of waiting in line to cross the border, but when the line before the booth was taking forever, we feared the entire afternoon was lost. Weeks ago, when we crossed over into Minnesota we experienced an extensive search. With a dreaded driver, no front window and 4 other scruffy hooligans on board, we expected no different this time around. We certainly were reasonable suspects and we were preparing for the imminent interrogation. In Minnesota, it took over 45 minutes as they used giant dentist mirrors, dogs, the whole deal. So we were fairly anxious, anticipating our Washington investigation so far from home. As we creeped along, we finally made it to the border guard. "Here we go again" we thought to ourselves as Jer spoke through the crack in our makeshift plexiglasswindow. After barely a peak into the back window, and a few questions about drug use, he sent us on our way.

....wait just a second, WHAT!? He was just going to let 5 unshowered, groggy, 20 year olds driving a barely legal Winnebago older than himself into his country, with not even a second look? Not cool. We could have had anything in there!? I must say we felt a bit ripped off, violated even.

But not to worry friends, the feeling faded quickly since we were now on our way to Wally Martins in Seattle. Here we met up with Dana, a friend of Jeremy, Josh and Charles from their time is Isreal last May. She is a super cool chick and stories were traded as we bussed our way downtown. As it turns out, our hometown MLB team, the Toronto Blue Jays were in Seattle for a series! So we picked up some cheap tickets for the game, and then caught a train down to the market, where we couldn't resist checking out the world's first Starbucks considering how often we steal their internet.

From here we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. The waitresses were friendly and the food worked wonders for our stomachs that had been empty since breakfast. From there we gave away a few tickets to the baseball game (which proved to be harder than we thought as most people had evening plans) and then headed back to the stadium for the opening pitch. It was an exciting game, with the Jays scoring 6 runs in the first inning, and going on to win 13-7.

Another really cool and random thing happened while in Seattle. Tia, a friend of Jer and I from Laurier was in Seattle as well, so we connected and watched the game together. It's always nice to see a familiar face in a new city. We traded stories about our most recent adventures and snapped a few pics as per usual.
We got back to the RV fairly late and after some interesting encounters on the city bus we played some President (it's been our go-to card game) and then hit the hay. Now we have a bunch of long hauls ahead. The long journey home has begun.

Officially homeward bound.
Cheers,The Boys
JG

No comments:

Post a Comment