Camp Disappointment

Monday – 5/4/26

Our first post! Here it goes…

Crossing into British Columbia

Right now, Matt and I are exploring British Columbia. We crossed the border Thursday night in Abbotsford, BC. There were so many worst case scenarios going through my head. i.e. not having the correct documentation for our animals and being turned away, forgetting to throw out our pen* and a drug dog finding it, somehow realizing that my handgun was not back in Texas with my sister-in-law and is actually in our van gun safe, etc. So many unrealistic paranoias it’s not even funny.

*The devil’s lettuce is legal in Washington… where we purchased it*

Ultimately, the border agent didn’t really care that we had animals with us. She didn’t look at our animal documentation that I spent so much time putting together and stressing out about (we can talk about how terrible Banfield is another time, although you probably already know). She thankfully didn’t check the food in our fridge (where we were hiding the Mexicans) or pantry. All she did was ask us a few questions about sneaking alcohol across, what we were doing in Canada, and how long we would be visiting.* She then shined a light on the ceiling and floor (I’m assuming looking for ways we could smuggle drugs across the border) and sent us on our way. We were in a brand new country!!!

*We naively planned on driving straight through B.C & Yukon’s 37 hours over a three day weekend, but got about 3 hours into B.C before calling it a night and realizing we had massively miscalculated. When we were driving the Subaru across the country, without our geriatric herd of animals, we were able to put down 12 – 15 hour drives at the cost of an alani every three hours. Now with all the whining, bed shitting etc., we have to stop so frequently its a pain to get more than 4 hours a day behind the wheel. All this to say, we told the border agent that we would be in Alaska by Monday, and wouldn’t need to spend a work day in Canada. We were so wrong…*

First Thoughts

Wow!!!

Matt and I have been to a lot of beautiful places in the U.S. Having said that, our first thoughts were “this is the prettiest place we’ve ever been!” Our favorite place ever (so far) is the Olympic Peninsula because of the dense rainforests, moody beaches, and the Olympic snowcapped mountains. Driving through that part of Washington, there are thick, dense forests, but you’re always aware of the fact that there are giant swaths of land that are logged and empty. Sometimes you’ll drive by a plot of land that almost feels like a cemetery with piles of the leftover tree limbs. In BC, it feels like the beautiful, vast forest goes on forever, untouched, wild…*

*We are aware that BC supports a TON of logging, but the olympic penis is so small compared to BC that you are driving through cleared sections every 5 – 15 minutes, apposed to the several hours of forest between logged sites we experienced in BC.

**This is not to say that logging is evil and all that comes with it, this is an observation that trees are prettier than dirt and piles of sticks.*

***This isn’t to say that the logging industry is completely innocent of corruption and wrongdoing. There is a famous video of loggers being told one of the last ivory billed woodpeckers* is living in a tree and it being immediately destroyed by a logger on behalf of their employer.

****This is getting excessive and won’t happen again, but the ivory billed woodpecker WAS a woodpecker native to southeastern U.S and the Caribbean and is presumed extinct since 1987.