If you hold it up to your ear... you can hear the ocean!

Ok... Here's the deal. Lately, I've been starting my blog by letting you know where we are at in real time (since I'm still a few days behind on the blog). However, I've decided to do something a little different this time. Instead of me telling you... you tell me. I will not give any clues except for this one picture. The deal is, you need to tell me where we are (City and State or Province) and why the object in the picture is relevant or what it is. I'll even add to the stakes. For the first person who gets it right by posting the answer as a comment on my blog... We'll take you and your spouse out for dinner when we get back to IA/MN. So take a look and see for yourself. Here is the picture.

P.S. The flags are irrelevant.

REMEMBER: I want the name of the City,

State / Provence and why this picture is relavent or what makes it important. You may have to do a little research for this one!! Don't email the answer... post it as a comment on the blog.

If nobody comes up with the correct answer by the time I blog next, I'll add a clue. By the way, if you really know me, you'll know why I'd drive over 100 miles out of our way to go and see this place!!

Tuesday, September 2. (Happy Anniversary Craig and Shelley!)

We woke up to another gorgeous morning in Kelowna today. The sun was shining brightly and we had good tempertures throughout the night. After packing up our camp, we headed a few blocks over for breakfast. Now, if you're familiar with Canada, I'm sure you've heard of Tim Hortons. For the rest of us, including us up to this point...they are a chain of restaurants throughout Canada. We saw them everywhere, and I mean everywhere. They are on the corner, they are in the malls, they are in gas stations, they are combined with Wendy's... you get the picture. Anyway, Tim Horton was a Canadian who played hockey in the NHL. In 1964, he opened a coffee and donut shop in Ontario. He was tragically killed in a car accident in 1974 but his partner went on to franchise the brand - putting them everywhere. They are like the equilivant of Starbucks in the US except they have rockin' good donuts!! Bambi fell in love with a thing called timbits which are basically just donut holes. Any of you who really know Bambi, know how much she loves a good donut. Especially sour cream donuts with glaze from the Hy-Vee on Kimberly street in Davenport. To this day, we can't go near the Quad Cities without stopping at the Kimberly street Hy-Vee for a donut or two. Actually, the last time we went to Kentucky, we stopped by and Bambi told the gal at the counter that we went out of our way to get these donuts, so she gave them to her for free!

Anyway, these timbits were sour cream donut holes with liberal amounts of glaze, just the way she likes them. Almost enough for her to apply for dual-citizenship!!

We grabbed some timbits for the road (they were gone before we 20 miles down the road I think) and headed back towards the coast.

Before we left the area, I thought it was time for me to get adjusted again. All this driving was giving me a case of sciatica. So we stopped in at a Chiropractor called Dr. David Manns that we happened to drive past in Westbank. We went inside and I asked the receptionist if he could see me and as luck would have it, he was in between patients and took me right in. He was a really nice guy and he did a great job of adjusting me. I'm happy to report that even in light of a few thousand more miles, I'm sciatica free and loving it. I guess this chiropractic stuff really does work. I tell you though, I sure am missing my good friend Dr. Diehl. Since being under his care over the last 5 years, I've forgotten how good it was to get adjusted on a regular basis.

Anyway, we were drawing close to the coast and we noticed that we missed our last chance to take a non-toll road which would bring us to Vancouver. Bambi was reading one of our books to me out loud and we just missed the exit. The bad part about this was that the next sign informed us that vehicles pulling a trailer would be subject to a toll of $50 Canadian. We though that really bit but we were too far to turn back now. If we did, we'd waste more in fuel and time than if we just paid the toll. Now, here is a testament to the human spirit and Gods sense of humor or kindness. As we approached the toll, we were like; "well, we've never had to pay $50 to drive on a road before, but oh well." We saw that there were 6 different toll lanes available so I just chose one which was about two lanes over. We waited for the lady ahead of us and as she cleared the toll we pulled up. The gal in the tollbooth smiled at us and told us "no toll for you... the lady ahead of you already paid it for you." I kid you not... still thinking about it gives me goosebumps. We asked why, and the lady said..."Oh, sometimes people just do that." We asked her how much our toll would be and she said $10 - apparently, the $50 surcharge is for semis and vehicles above a certain GVW. But still $10. She went on to say... yeah, one time I had someone do it and the next person paid for the next and so it went until finally 11 cars had participated in this pay-it-forward mentality. Each one paying for the next until it reached someone who really needed it. I reached into my wallet and Bambi just smiled at me. As much as we are Dutch, and as much as we'd have loved to have saved the $10... we decided to pay it forward. It is our hope that somewhere down the line it reached someone who really needed it. We wondered if maybe it would make a difference in someones day. We know it will... God is good all the time.

We continued on and could see why it costs $10 to travel this road. First of all, it's worth it as we were privey to some of the most majestic mountain scenery we'd seen so far. We'd come over a mountain pass and the valleys were just full of misty fog. Then we'd look over and there was a 1000 foot waterfall cascading down the valley across the way. It was just stunning and we could only imagine the cost of building this road that they had to try to recoop by charging the toll. The bridges were really high in some areas and some spanned distances of several hundred feet.

Finally, we reached the last mountain pass and began a very steep descent into the town of Harrison Hot springs. The Chilliwack area is at an elevation of over 2000 feet while Harrison Hot Springs is at 33 feet above sea level. The descendt was incredible and we could see why there were mandatory "brake check" pullouts for trucks.

Anyway, we decided to go in off the highway and check out this town of Harrison Hot Springs. You'll never believe it if I tell you... but it's another beautiful little town with a lake....and you guessed it...it's surrounded by mountains. BC is Beautiful!!

What really makes Harrison popular though is it's natural hot springs. There is a public hot springs pool and a hotel that capitalizes on the health benefits by offering 3 different pools. The springs also flow into the lake but the temperature of the lake is cool because of the mountain run-off.

We stopped down town by the lake to have another picnic lunch and notices a flurry of activity on the beach. Turns out, they were getting ready to host the world championships of sandcastle building... I kid you not!!

We watched for a while as teams of two were building their sand towers, packing it into wooden forms with water, and then removing the forms (kind of like laying a concrete foundation or sidewalk). Then, the two would use all sorts of tools from shovels to knives to trowels to carve and shape the sand into the most unbelievable creations. You'll have to see the pictures to see for yourself. The team has 36 hours to build their design, then they spray them with some sort of laquer to hold the moisture and prevent erosion. They say, that if the weather is not too terrible, these sculptures can last for weeks. Again, we just couldn't believe how talented they were because both sculptors were working on the same vision. On top of that, they had to begin at the top and carve their way to the bottom so they had to have their proportions just right... there are no re-do's.

Anyway, after checking it out for a while, we decided to keep moving on. We finally hit Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean by late afternoon and for the first time in this trip we could tell we were in a major city. Traffic got a lot busier and the countryside disappeared revealing a web of freeways and skyscrapers. That aside, Vancouver is still a gorgeous city and is very green. Because it's in the Pacific NW, rainfall is abundant and everywhere you look there are huge stands of trees and everything that is not concrete, is covered in grass, trees and flowers. Truly a beautiful city.

We decided to check out another RV park so we plugged in Mandy our trusty GPS and she took us directly to Burnaby Carribou RV park. We could see that this was going to be a really nice place as we pulled up. Carefully manicured lawns and trees everywhere along with those really, really expensive motorhomes with like 5 slideouts. Our trailer has zero slideouts!!

Anyway, I got out of the truck and walked up to the counter and this punk kid says "can I help you." I'm like, "yeah, I wonder if you have room for us for two nights?" He looks over my shoulder and looks at our truck and trailer and says "that yours?" I'm like "yep" somewhat proud of my camper. He goes "but it just looks like a cargo trailer." Bambi and I looked at eachother and said, "yeah, I guess it does look like a cargo trailer." He was unamused and said, "you can't stay in THIS park with that kind of trailer. Only trailers that meet Canadian Camper Association standards are welcome in this park." Instantly, I could feel the hair on my neck starting to rise and I just wanted to pop this kid in the mouth... not because of what he said, but because of the way he said it. "you can't stay in THIS park..." Like there is some unknown upper eschelon of RV parks and this place was the pinnacle.

I'm like why not? you gotta problem with my trailer? He said in his snottly little punk way, unless you have a sticker showing that it conforms with North American Standards you could not only not stay in this park, there won't be an RV park in North America where you can stay. By now I'm just ticked!! I said, "that's funny, We've been all across the upper US and Southern Canada and stayed in several State parks and RV camps and NEVER even heard of this 'little standard' of yours." I think he was starting to see that I was ticked so another kid came over and said, "look we just have to follow the rules here but I can give you directions to another RV park not far from here, they'll take you."

He gave us the address for our GPS and we began walking back to our truck when I just snapped. I started to walk back to the office and the kid backed away from the counter. I reached over the counter and grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back over to my side of the counter. I said, look you little snot nosed punk. I've just had it with your sniveling little Canadian styled Euro trash mouth and I'm going to teach you a little lesson in respect. I punched the kid right in the mouth and he started to cry. I then reached over on the desk where there was a huge sea shell. I picked it up and grabbed the kid again by the shirt and said, "look, if you hold it real close, you can probably hear the ocean!!" I took the shell and jammed it into the side of his skull... no wait. Actually I said to the kid, "well thanks anyway" and we got in the truck and went to the other RV park... but wouldn't you just love to.... never mind.

We took the short drive over to a place called Tynehead RV park. Not quite as manicured as the place before but still pretty nice. I walked into the office and a nice young oriental kid came up to the counter. His English was pretty good but still a little choppy. He said "you want to stay?" I'm like "yep." He looked outside at my rig and said "that your trailer?" Sensing a repeat of before I lowered my head and said "yep". He said... "you sleep in trailer?" I'm like "yep." He looks it over again and says... "is ok with me!" I'm like "sweet."

This kid and I had a really fun conversation. He was really nice and was curious about us and where we were from. I told him Iowa. He goes "OOOOOH Potatoes!!" I'm like... "No, Corn" He replied "OOOOOHHHHH, IOWA!!" I'm like "yep." He stops and thinks a while and after a few seconds, he looks at me like the light bulb just went on and says in a real low voice "If you build it, they will come???" I'm like "YEAH, that's IOWA!!" He started going "oooooh, field of dreams... you know Kevin Costner?" "I'm like yeah, that's the movie about Iowa all right, but no I don't know Kevin Costner." He seemed a little disappointed until I told him "I've been to the field of dreams though..." That seemed to satisfy him and we were finally able to finish the check-in process.

We spent the next two nights in Tynehead and it served as a nice place to home-base out of for our time in Vancouver.