Day 1: White Rock to Abbotsford

After packing up all of our personal gear and the Sea to Sea gear, we headed out to White Rock to dip  our tires in the Pacific.

 We rode in our service teams for the entire day so we could get to know each other.  The tide was out when we got to White Rock so we had to take our bikes through the mud to get to the ocean waves.

  Many friends and relatives of riders who are from BC came out to cheer us off on our ride.   We were one of the first groups to leave White Rock and we headed for Abbotsford. We rode in Canada on Highway Zero.  This road is right along the United States border.  In fact there is a US road about five yards from the road we were on with only a small ditch in between.

 There are  many cameras along this route to watch that no one crosses over.   We rode east with snow capped Mount Baker visible to our right.

We rode past many beautiful farm homes along our route.  There are many Dutch names on the mailboxes.  The farm economy must be doing well here.  There are many large dairies in this valley.

We stayed at Gateway Community Church. A large, beautiful church building.  Bert Slofstra recently retired as the pastor of this church.  Bert is riding the entire sea to sea route and his wife is working as a support person on the ride.

Members of this church fed us a huge dinner.  We placed our tents on the grass near the church.   It got very cold during the night and I slept with my coat on.