Smoke

It's been a few days. For a variety of reasons, I don't like southern British Columbia. I have found that BC is too busy and many of the people are rude.

We stayed in Burns Lake then Cash Creek and then crossed the border. The border crossing at Peace Arch Park took about 45 minutes. We chose the wrong lane. :( The border patrol officer was in a cranky mood. He sent 3 of the cars immediately in front of us to be thoroughly checked(strip search the cars ;) ). When we got to the booth, we could see border agents swarming over those cars. But I had no trouble. The agent scowled at me and demanded to know how many were traveling in my vehicle. I told him three and handed him our passports. He asked where we had been and listened as I told him about our journey. He asked the girls to show their faces, smiled and waved us through. Our time with the agent took about a minute.

We spent the night south of Seattle. Sadly, my friend in Seattle had a prior commitment so I wasn't able to see her. I was unable to give her any advance notice of my arrival because I hadn't had cell service for more than a week. Briar is sad that she will not be meeting her August cousins face to face, but I told her that we just might be able to convince them to come visit us in Malibu.

Today we drove down to California from Washington. We spent the night in Rochester, WA. As we were checking out of the hotel I saw brochures on Orca Whale Watching! Unfortunately we were a good 3 hours south of where we would need to catch the boat to see orcas. *sigh* The girls were very resistant to the idea of driving north again. They are tired of traveling. Neither of them could see any value in delaying our arrival back in Malibu just to see a few more whales even if they were killer whales not humpbacks.

Just north of the California border we drove into lots of thick smoke. The smoke continued to be really bad until just north of Redding. I was a little worried because in the past, this would have brought on an asthma attack. I had been on the Marshall Protocol for the asthma and knew I was cured (no attacks in almost 2 years) but I was still a little worried as I was breathing all that smoke. When I had asthma, that amount of smoke would have brought on a dangerous asthma attack and sent me to the emergency room. Today my only symptom was anxiety from remembering those past attacks. :)

I am done with asthma! Thank you Dr Marshall!

Boo also had asthma in the past. She has also been on the MP. She has also asthma free for 1.5 years. Hurray, hurray. Now if we can just get her knee healed in time for her to start the soccer season.

We are in a nice air conditioned room in Redding. DH found a room on the internet. He called the hotel and reserved it. When I got to the hotel I asked for a lower rate. They lowered it the price 10%. I asked for an even lower rate and they lowered it 20%. I am finding that getting a cheaper rate is as simple as just asking for it and then waiting for them to respond. After they quote me a better room rate, I ask if they can go still lower and they do. Fun!