In which Canada offers sanity and lots of gelato
Posted by Isabel on January 5th, 2010. Filed under: My Sweet Babboo, Vacations.I took the last two weeks off from work. The King took it off too.
(He’s unemployed, so it wasn’t that hard for him to get the time off!)
(He hates my humor.)
We also kept Babboo home from school.
The thing is, we sort of forgot to actual make any plans for what we’d be doing for those TWO WEEK OFF.
By about day three The King was ready for me to go back to work. By about day two, I was ready.
He started walking around the house mumbling different locations that we could drive to.
“We could drive to Reno.”
“We could drive down the coast to California.”
“We could drive to Eastern Oregon.”
I hate car rides with a hate that chills me to my bones. (Something about feeling stuck in a car with nothing to do or eat or see.) I tried to pretend I didn’t hear the mumbling of far off places. Eventually there was no pretending.
I had to come up with a plan. A plan that didn’t include fifteen hour car rides. I had to come up with this plan soon.
And then the phone rang.
It was our friends from church. Come to find out the husbands parents, who live in Vancouver, Canada, are out of town. And hey, did we want to go with them and stay in the empty house?!
It must be noted that Vancouver is a short three hours away.
Heck yes, I wanted to go. And here are the reasons why:
- Vancouver is much closer then Reno.
- No hotel costs.
- We could see Vancouver with a local.
- WE MUST GET OUT OF THE HOUSE.
And so we packed our bags full of our new Christmas items (New coat and camera for me. Pirates and Legos for Babboo) and headed out of the country. Since The King was hell-bent on a “ride”, we took the scenic route, via Chuckanut Drive. It was very scenic and lovely and I’m glad we took the detour. We made it to the border in record time and according to the sighs the border wait time wasn’t *that bad*.
And then…..
I totally remembered that in all the packing madness our passports HAD BEEN LEFT BEHIND!!
While they’ll let you into Canada without a passport, it’s a little harder to get back into the States. Especially this close to an actual terrorist attack, and the Olympics.
We turned right around and drove back to Seattle to pick up our passports. We were at our house long enough to pee and get the passports.
In the end The King got the car ride he wanted. I got out of the house like I wanted. And my Sweet Babboo got to chose from 218 gelato flavors.
January 5th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Look at his little haircut – he looks so grown up. I want to go to Vancouver on my next BIG trip with my best friend! Looks amazingly beautiful!
January 5th, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Oh wow, passport issues…I can’t even imagine turning around to drive back and get them (well, for me it’d be a 15-hour drive…so my vacation would have been spent driving to the border and then back…super exciting)
I’m so glad you had a good time in Vancouver!! And yay for gelato!
xox
January 5th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
oh, gelato. Some of my best life memories include gelato. I can’t imagine that many flavors!
Maybe someday we could do a house-swap. You fly here and stay in my house for free, and vice versa. We could organize a giant blogging houseswap thingie so everyone can go somewhere they want..for free!
January 5th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
I love Vancouver, it is lovely and clean and the people are nice, but if you ever do make it to Reno you should totally email me or something so we can meet for coffee. I don’t think Reno has that many flavors of gelato combined in the whole city but I can think of one or two not horrible coffee houses.
Having to turn around SUCKS. Glad you kept your sanity
January 6th, 2010 at 2:44 am
That would suck so bad! I was so scared of forgetting my birth certificate before I left for Vancouver. (This was before you needed a passport to drive over the border) So neat that you got to spend that time in Vancouver though! I can’t wait to go back.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:42 am
I would have had to become Canadian.
I don’t have a passport.
Lame, I know.
But back in the day Canada didn’t require a passport.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:51 am
Um you may have gelato, but in Reno we have the Awful Awful burger. Dude. That thing is legendary. Next time you should choose Reno. It’s really not as bad as it seems on Reno 911. Unless you like that show, then it’s exactly that bad. It totally grows on you.
January 6th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Oh my gosh, that sounds like something I’d do! Bless your heart, at least you got your goals accomplished!
I’ve never had gelato. Am I missing something huge?
January 26th, 2010 at 6:15 am
You were in da hood! Nice! If I got all the way to the border, especially via the scenic route, there’s no way I’d have the stones to backtrack with child in tow just to get passports. You guys are such a neat family!
And to commenter Kim: OMFG you have to try gelato. You are missing something HUGE!