Mavimet's Weblog

When I lived in Winnipeg I used to cross the border and head into the United States on a fairly regular basis. COVID made an end to that and I really hadn’t thought about going again. After moving to B.C. I was even closer to the border than when I lived in Winnipeg and I did consider crossing the border, but I don’t know anything about the towns & cities nearby and didn’t know where the best place to visit would be. So, I didn’t go.

The senior’s organization that I joined here in Chilliwack – (Chilliwack & District Seniors’ Resources Society) set up a tour to the U.S. and I checked my passport & found it was still good and decided to go.

At the border crossing we all had to go inside with our passports, but that didn’t take too long even though this was a bus load of seniors. We were all deemed ok to continue on, and we were soon on our way again.

Our first destination was LaConner, Washington. It is a very nice tourist town, with lots of interesting shops and is right on the water for some beautiful views.

Since we were just in the country for the day, we would have had to pay duty to purchase anything to bring home – so most of us only bought something to eat. I just had an ice cream cone because I knew we had a crab & chicken dinner waiting for us at our next stop.

I didn’t take photos of the shop, but I had a great conversation with a man who sells merchandise using photos that his wife and he took of the birds. We talked about cameras & photos & birds.

I think they want the boats to go slow through here (2nd photo is closeup of the sign to slow down).

I didn’t see any babies, but I am sure there are some (or even just one) in the nest.

A couple more shots in LaConner

Interesting rock with barnacles (whatever that means) I don’t know if it is really a rock or something else that these are growing on. Maybe someone who lives near the ocean can tell me.

At this point, we left LaConner and headed north to Blaine or Bellingham, Washington. They actually fly the Canadian Flag alongside the American Flag. Things went a little bit wrong here as we were expecting a cruise through Deception Pass. We did have a cruise and we did have an absolutely delicious crab & chicken dinner – but we didn’t go through Deception Pass. It was a great cruise anyway.

The Salish Express was our boat and we saw lots of sailboats and wing surfers.

The captain we telling us that at some times of the year, whales can be seen in the area we were currently in – but that this was not the right time of year for them. He had hardly finished saying this when a whale’s water spout was seen. We slowed down to see if it re-surfaced and for several times it did. Since we were not expecting to see whales, this was very exciting.

The captain advised us that this is a Grey Whale.

The Humpback Whales that my daughter and I saw last year lifted their tails right out of the water before they went down.

After the cruise, we got back in the bus for our ride back home. We certainly had a great day!