Let me tell you a story...

This little blog is about me, Hailey and my pursuit of happiness. I've decided to move on from modeling and to a new chapter of my life, artisry. I paint, I take pictures and I enjoy junking for vintage goods. All of this is done with lots of day dreaming in between.

I have a shop on Etsy that I just opened up in Feb 2009 and I am excited to see where it goes from there.

Thank you for your love and support.

Hailey

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Sea to Sky Highway

The Sea to Sky Highway is an extension of Highway 99.  This road is a former logging road that connects Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler with Lillooet.  It is completely paved and about 185 miles of beautiful winding road lined with beautiful pure scenery.  Much of the road is squeezed between mountain and sea.  


For Darren and I... this trek of winding road was not long enough. The scenery was amazing.  The town of Whistler reminded me of Park City here in Utah.  A mountain town, rustic log buildings, ski resorts mixed with a very "cosmo" feel.  If we had more time then we would have stopped.  Whistler to Vancouver was busy with construction preparing for the Winter Olympics.  Lots of money was obviously being spent for the 2 weeks of Olympic excitement.  


We found vancouver to be quite confusing.  The traffic was thick and signs seemed to disappear.  We turned here, there, trying to figure what the iPhone was telling us.  We kept looking for the U.S. Border signs...until finally we found one.  Thankfully we were going the right way.  We came onto a freeway on ramp type thing .. accelerated... and then saw the border and suddenly... a motorcycle cop was on us.  Darren was driving.  The scene went like so:


Darren:  "uh oh"
Me:  "what..."
Darren:  "I think that's a cop behind us, I think I was speeding"



Me:  "expletive!... is he really going to pull us over?"


Me:  "expletive!.... he's really pulling us over!!"


Darren:  Hello Sir


Officer:  So what would happen to you if you were in America and you were going 65 mph faster than the speed limit?


Darren:  I'd go to jail


The officer looks over to me in the passenger seat.


Officer:  Do you have any plans tonight?


Me:  ... uhhh... I hope so.


Officer:  Do you have dinner plans?


Me:  ...I'm hoping so.


Officer:  Well make sure he takes you somewhere nice, like Sizzler because I'm not taking him to jail this time.  


...huge sigh!!... lucky Darren.. never gets tickets! ... yet.


Officer:  Im not even going to give you a ticket.  Just watch your speed and travel safe.


Darren/Me:  Thank you.  


Whew!  We then slowly merged back onto the highway and pulled up to the border station.  At this border station there were two U.S. agents for each vehicle.  At all the other stations there had only been one agent for each vehicle and in most cases they stayed in their little box and didn't get out.  But at this one... both agents were out and there were dogs sniffing vehicles.  I suddenly felt like I was at the Mexican border.  Not that I've ever been at the Mexican Border but this is how I envision it.  We handed over our passports.  One border cop had a light and flashed it in the windows, he walked around the back.  I thought to myself, surely they will want to see the dogs paperwork.  Meanwhile the other border cop was interrogating us.  


Border Cop:  Where you going?  



Darren:  Home


Cop:  Where's home?


Darren:  Utah


Cop:  Where you coming from? 


Darren:  Well.. 2 days ago it was Alaska.  We are just driving back down.


Cop:  Did you buy anything in Canada?  


Darren:  Yes.
The cop is suddenly interested...like..ohh..got a live one here..


Cop:  What did you buy?


Darren:  Gas
Darren is such a smart ass... lol... but really, if you said no you didn't buy anything.. then that'd be a lie.  You know where the cop is going with the question.  Which is if you did buy something other than gas.. there's duty tax that could be owed before crossing back into the states.


The second cop who had been walking around the truck looking inside was now standing next to the cop who was asking us all the questions.  He got a nod from the second cop, handed us our passports and told us to have a nice trip.


They didn't even ask about the dog.  Just seemed like after all the literature I had read about crossing the borders, what to expect, what they request for paperwork, blah blah blah.. this intimidating border station would for sure have wanted to see paperwork on the dog.  I mean, who knows where I could have picked that dog up from.  What if I had drugs stitched into her belly or something.  It all just seems to be smoking mirrors.  I'm glad we weren't harassed further but then again...they wouldn't have been able to get us on anything except for having expired insurance cards.  oops!  Just the cards were expired, not the actual insurance.  :) A phone call would have clarified that but that would have been the only thing that could have stalled us.  The funny part is I was pretty freaked out once I'd discovered our expired insurance cards and even more freaked out when I read that Canada has higher insurance requirements than the U.S. But I was so consumed with making sure the dog had her paperwork...that I didn't check the insurance cards which in the end... it pretty much made no difference as we were never asked.  We were only asked to show the dogs paperwork when entering BACK into Canada after Skagway only because I told the guy I had a dog on.  Which I didn't even have to tell him.  He had only asked if I had anyone else traveling with us.  Which would be interpreted to another human really, not a dog.  I'm analyzing way to much.  


Anyway... here's some pictures of the journey down the Sea to Sky Highway.  Enjoy.




Thanks for reading. 


Hailey

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