Bellingham to Vancouver

I wanted to stop in Bellingham to visit Danny, a crust punk queeruptor and baroque music virtuoso (it's a great combination!). I ended up having a great two days hanging out there. It's a lovely little university town, and felt very relaxed. We played chess in a coffee shop that gave us free refills, went to another food bank and made a huge delicious meal, found me a second-hand copy of the Pump up the Volume soundtrack (but I'm still looking for Stereo Total!), sat down by the water at night, watched The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy film, and generally hung out.
It was a very relaxing and pleasant two days. And I learnt a new verb: Spange. It means to busk, or ask for spare change. (Busking with Baroque recorder pieces is Danny's main source of income at the moment, at least until uni goes back at the end of the month.)

And then I set off for the hour or so's drive to Vancouver. It would be an hour, if it weren't for the border crossing, which can take a while.
I was lucky, although I had to wait in a long line of cars for about 30 mins, the actual crossing was quick and trouble free. I didn't even have to get out of my car. Given the stories I had heard of vehicle searches (I have a lot of vehicle to search) and delays, I was quite pleasantly surprised. He just asked a few basic questions, including 'Are you bringing anything into Canada?'. I had to point out that I was bringing everything I owned into Canada, and was he looking for anything in particular?! But as I didn't have weapons (do kitchen knives count? I didn't think of that!), tobacco, alcohol or C$10 000 (unfortunately) there wasn't any problem.