After a failed attempt to camp in Sheboygan, IL (apparently, the most popular campground on the Lake Michigan coast), we hastily packed up the car and drove South to Chicago where our dear friend Paige graciously received us into her home. We were tired and weary from driving and camping in the rain, and thrilled to have such a nice place to stay.

The first order of business was to meet up with Sabah, and woman we found on Craig’s List who was willing to take our plants to New York. She was driving there in 24 hours, and this plan would spare us the grief of dealing with border patrol on our way in and out of Toronto tomorrow. We couldn’t bare the prospect of getting busted again and leaving our plants behind to be destroyed (burned) by the Canadian border control. We don’t know much about Sabah, but she did wear a glow-in-the-dark peace sign necklace, which makes me think she will be kind to our little friends.

Today, we are off to take an architectural boat tour and to do some bike-riding around the city. More to come…

The Candian Rockies rained on us. We had planned on hiking upto grande vistas and enjoiyng the last days of summer. When the mountain tops emmerged from the thick mess of fog, it was indeed beautiful. Unfortunately, we ended up pushing through pretty quickly because we could not a bare another noght of soggy slumber. We did make it to a pretty cool hot spring, which is always a pleasant rainy day activity.

This was the point at which “Operation Rainbow Bridge” crumbled. We made the hasty decision to dip down, exiting “America’s Hat,” and enter Montana. At Border control this time, we had a little snarl. They officer asked us to open our trunk. Our trunk was full of beautiful, but travel weary houseplants. When asked to pull over to the side of the road and please come into the office, my knees went week. Would this be the end of our trusted green friends? We had made it this far, but it wasn’t looking good. I put on my most innocent face and held my breath as the officer poked and prodded through our car. We explained that they had come from The States, not Canada, and that we had nooooo idea this was considered smuggling. He shook his finger at us and told us this was our lucky day, He would let us into the country, but admonished that we best not ever try to do something like this again.

Vancouver is just as magical as we suspected it would be. We are picking blackberries everywhere we go! The streets are covered with them!

We visited Goonies, the art space run by Merida Anderson on Hastings Ave. The space is a spacious storefront, and is garnering a lot of attention for being one of the first of its kind to move into this extremely drugged-out district. When we arrived for her open weaving session, there was a very eclectic cast of characters giving the loom a go. There are (clean) needles and saline solution stuck in there as well. We took a bike ride the next day to find some Vancouver detritus to weave in. We found some rusty metal shapes on the street and pulled up some weeds which we incorporated.Adam stuck them on the back of his bike to get them over to the gallery.

For our last day we went went hiking in Lynn Canyon, which is just half an hour from the city. We packed lightly and set out on the trail. We camped illicitly in the park, just up on a ridge from the river bank. All went well until the next morning when the rain came pouring down. This was probably the hardest rain I have ever been exposed to, and the least prepared I have ever been for weather. We raced out of the park as fast as we could, sopping sopping wet. Adam ran ahead to get the car, which was conveniently dead. Thank God for Canada and their helpful ways, because a ranger helped us out and got us on our way in no time.