I am typing this offline as we battle traffic along the I-5 on our way to Seattle. It is 6:30pm and despite having left Vancouver before 11am, we are just now within several miles of SEATAC.

Things were pretty smooth getting out of Vancouver-- a few congested spots here and there, but nothing too horrible. That is, until we got to within 1 mile of the Canada/USA border. The signs we encountered did not lie-- wait times of 2 or more hours were expected, and it took us just a little over 2 hours to inch through less than a mile to get through customs and immigration.

We were moving along so slowly that we even killed the engine in several spots, to save on gas, as the fuel cost for restarting the engine was less than it would've been for idling so long. We popped in "Finding Nemo" and watched about half of it on the laptop before we finally got to within 800 meters of the border. By then, I was feeling restless and took Todd out so we could walk around a bit. It was amusing-- a bit like the opening scene in "Office Space"-- despite walking as slowly as I've ever walked, we still managed to outpace Allan in the car-- by leaps and bounds!

We watched a bunch of protesters marching in protest of the embargo on Cuba, and Todd enjoyed blowing dandelion seeds before rejoining Daddy. A little while later we arrived at Peace Arch park, a large strip of greenery with a huge monument in the middle, straddling both countries. I took several pictures of the monument, which commemorated the unity between the United States and Canada, as well as flowerbed arrangements of the respective countries. I even got a picture of an obelisk marking the official international border-- just as Allan was driving our rental car past it :-)

When we finally got up to border patrol, things went smoothly from there. I couldn't understand why there was such a long delay-- there were twice as many US border patrol agents manning US entry as there were Canadians when we were going the other way last week! And last week, crossing into Canada, we only experienced about a 15-minute wait. Related to the long weekend, maybe, what with Canada Day being celebrated this weekend? What IS Canada Day anyway-- is it the equivalent of our Independence Day on July 4?

We stopped by a Super Wal-Mart to do some more shopping and replenish our grocery supplies, and now we have to return the rental car at SEATAC, and get the new contract for our new car (because this previous week's rental is being paid for by the university, and we're footing our own bill for the second week's rental). It is now 6:45pm and I am hoping to be into and out of the airport within an hour, and on the road to our hotel by 8pm, giving us just enough time to eat a quick dinner and put Todd to bed. Again, just as with the very first travel entry, the time of my actual posting this will show exactly how close I am to my time predictions ;-) At any rate, it's still loads better than a checkin of 3am at the hotel, whew! Never again! ;-P

whew, it's 10pm and we've just finished showering and eating. We tried visiting this neat looking restaurant right next door to the hotel, but were met with really high prices and really poor service-- the servers and busboys all but ignored us for about 10-15 minutes, and probably would've been longer if we hadn't given up and left. Nobody even came by to offer us water or get our drink order! We tried another restaurant on the other side of the hotel, but it was part of a casino and wouldn't admit anyone under 21. Sigh... Burger King it was :-P

And now I'm ready to wind down for the night and get some good sleep before visiting the sights of Seattle tomorrow. Good night!