Sunday, 17 July 2011 - by Steve We left Big White this morning to head into Washington State with high hopes and a little trepidation. We were taking ourselves by car across the Canada/US border for the first time and beginning our adventure for real. We travelled the back way from Big White to Osoyoos, where we stopped for lunch by the lake that crosses from Canada into the US. We then fuelled the car (28.5L @ $1.405C) and ourselves (coffee) for what we thought would be a long border crossing. After queuing for about 20 minutes it was our turn, and we were directed to pull over and go into the border crossing offices. This sounded ominous for the beginning of our journey we might not get into the US even with our Visa's approved. Once inside we were asked to hand over our passports and wait, about 5 minutes later we were assisted in completing all the correct paper work. It appears that as we had not entered the US via an air or seaport there was a need to complete certain paper work and get something stapled into our passports saying we can visit many times. All up in under 45 minutes we crossed the border, were given a map of Washington State and encouraged to enjoy our stay. Having crossed into the US we now set out on reaching our goal of the Nth Cascades by nightfall. As we had decided not to risk our crossing we had very little food with us and so needed to also find somewhere to eat as well as stay. The road trip along the Highway 97 south took us through farmland although much seemed to be under-utilized. It could be that the major output was lucerne or hay for winter feeding but there was a lack of industry other than a timber mill. We took the 20 at Omak to head towards Winthrop which is the gateway to the North Cascades. We went through the town of Twisp which other than the interesting name did not seem too interesting. We proceeded onward noting that time was getting away from us. We made our way towards the town of Methow Valley, where realizing that we only had $12US that we might need to find a bank. The town did at least have one bank with an auto-teller. So parking Clancy ready for a quick escape if needed, Stephen attempted to extract some cash from the machine, it accepted our card and for the princely sum of $2.50 handed out the money. Enriched and safe we left for Winthrop (http://www.winthropwashington.com/index.html). Here is a very interesting township, the local council has prescribed that the town's buildings to be developed in a style similar to its heyday in the 1890's. So the town had a rustic feel but was not the plastic type that you so often get when these decisions are made. We were hungry and ended up eating at a CARLOS1800™ Mexican Grill & Cantina (www.carlos1800.com) the food was plentiful and the service excellent. (just look at the photo) Having eaten we decided to walk the town to see what it was like, at the Trails End Bookstore (http://www.trailsendbookstore.com/) we found 'The Milepost - Alaska Travel Planner' (http://milepost.com/) a book that only appeared to be available through online ordering. The store owner was helpful and on learning where we were from informed us that his brother was in Australia hunting camels. He asked a number of Australian Camel questions that were beyond my basic understanding of the pests of the outback. We now needed to find a place to stay for the night. In our total lack of planning for this part of the journey we had no idea of where we were to stay. Keen to progress we made it as far as Mazama, here it was decided to return to Winthrop to see what we could find. Find we did, that it was the weekend of the 25th Annual Winthrop Blues Festival (http://www.winthropbluesfestival.com/). As time was getting away from us we saw that there was a local park that seemed to allow overnight stays. Given our planning status we decided to see if we could harvest some gratis WiFi - to which we were rewarded with access this took us to late in the evening. Now was the big test for Clancy - quick ablutions stop then off to the parking area we had previously identified. It was now deserted, after a few moments soul searching we laid down the seats, unrolled the sleeping bags and set about getting some sleep. The night passed with only a few interruptions.