There's often some confusion about where Vancouver, Washington, USA is. There's a much better known city also called Vancouver, and it's in British Columbia, Canada. Neither one is on Vancouver Island, though -- that's another part of British Columbia and its main cities are Victoria and Nanaimo.

Our Vancouver is on the north bank of the Columbia River across from Portland, Oregon. The Columbia River does not have anything to do with British Columbia, either. It would seem that Captain Vancouver, who was first to discover and claim the entire Pacific Northwest for England, had either a huge ego or no imagination for naming places, maybe both, or perhaps the ship was so small that they could only pack a few names into it. Lewis and Clark followed along later and claimed the southern bank of the Columbia for the United States. Why Portland isn't called Lewiston or Clarkston I don't know. I guess they were pretty modest for living in a time before political correctness became fashionable. If they'd discovered it today, Portland would be called Sacajawea. Or maybe not.

In any case, it was the British Columbia Vancouver Marsha and I were headed for in the last days of August. We really like that city and had been looking for an excuse to visit it again after several years' absence, so when the Volvo Club of British Columbia (VCBC) sent us an application or 25 to attend their meet near there, we were quick to sign up.

We cruised happily up I-5 in the 1800S through occasional spatters of rain. Although various Portlanders we know were going up at the same time in a convoy, we usually prefer to travel solo. This avoids any conflicts about proper cruising speed and greatly reduces the number of collective Rest Stops to be made. We were scheduled to meet Cameron, Bob Moreno and Peter Eulau for lunch in Bellingham, WA, and go on as a group from there, but it's only 30 miles or so from Bellingham to Vancouver, B.C., so that was cool. Those guys travel at a good clip anyway.

Rain was welcome, because we'd been having a drought; the driest year on record, in fact. There was great concern that Portland would run out of water and the Water Department urged citizens to conserve the stuff at every opportunity. This was so effective that Portland never came close to running out, which is good. Then the Water Department figured out that it had sold far less product than usual and was now operating in the red, so they rewarded the dutiful citizens of their city with a stiff rate hike. This is why we're glad to live on the other side of the river from Portland. We had quite enough of that sort of thing back in California.

The drought ended just as we were passing through Olympia, where the occasional spatters suddenly turned into a blinding deluge -- real pull way off to the side of the road and stop sort of stuff. Unfortunately, I-5 through Olympia winds through concrete-walled canyons and there's no shoulder to pull off onto. With the wipers on high and full blower going, all I could see for five long minutes was concrete a few feet out the side window and the left rear quarter of a minivan ahead of us in the next lane. We didn't dare slow below 45 MPH for fear of being rear-ended. Visibility gradually returned as the rain eased and we emerged not only alive but undented, Uncle Olaf be praised.

Even with good visibility, there's no dodging rocks thrown into the air by trucks. I saw this one coming, but there was nothing to be done. It hit our windshield with a noise like a rifle shot, an inch above lower trim dead in front of the steering wheel. I hadn't intended to replace this windshield until we restore the car sometime next year, but we'll see. So far, the fracture has only propogated two inches from the bullseye and still isn't in my line of vision.

After that, we had no further problems and arrived in Bellingham promptly at noon. Due to construction, we were forced off our MapQuest-planned route and toured around downtown for 15 minutes before chancing on Railroad Avenue and the Casa Que Pasa, our appointed meeting place. We'd agreed to meet the others there between noon and one, so that was fine.

The reason we stopped in Bellingham at all is because that's where Carolyn's Amazon now lives -- the car we've watched Bob Moreno restore over the last two years, and have sometimes covered in this publication. In fact, Carolyn's Amazon was parked resplendently right in front of the Casa Que Pasa. Carolyn had entered it in the VCBC meet's concours in Bob's name. He was riding up with Cameron to collect it and would take in onwards from there himself if the car would run reliably. The "if" was because this rebuilt-to-new-condition beauty had developed a quirky tendency to quit running when least expected and then be perfectly fine again for no apparent reason. Bob and Cam were bringing all sorts of spare parts along, although none of us had a clue what the problem was.

Now, even though I'd known the car for some time, neither Marsha nor I had ever met Carolyn and had no idea what she looks like. After strolling around in front of the Casa for a while getting increasingly hungry and with no sign of Cam's or Peter's cars showing up, we wondered whether she might already be inside the crowded eatery. Marsha braved some embarrassment and wandered around the restaurant taking a poll, but no one was Carolyn. We finally gave up and ordered burritos for ourselves. As we sat down to consume these horse-leg-sized (and delicious) portions, the others arrived, shortly followed by Carolyn herself. Good -- if we could solve the car's problem quickly, we'd still be on schedule.

It turned out to be absolutely simple and we found it right away. Bob had installed a plastic fuel filter between the line from the tank and the fuel pump. There's not much space there and stress imposed by a bend in the rubber line had put a slight crack in the filter, making the pump lose suction intermittently. Installing a new 98-cent filter and bending the hardline just a little bit to relieve the stress set everything right in minutes. We all filled our tanks on the way out of town -- gas is more expensive in Canada, even paid for in U.S. dollars -- and off we went, now a four car procession.

Cam was in the lead as we entered the customs station at the border, and spent some minutes answering the question, "Are you bringing anything with you that you'll leave in Canada?" As IPD's representative at the meet, he had a bunch of T-shirts and accessories to be given away as door prizes or whatnot. The customs guy, who turned out to be a young man who didn't look to be 21 yet, decided that was okay, let Cam through without charging any duty, and turned to the next car in line. We brought up the rear. "Now let me guess," said the kid. "You're going to the car show too, right?" This is the only time I can remember when all it took to clear customs was a single nod.

A half hour later, we were parked in front of the Tsawwassen Inn next to Irv Gordon's record-setting car. Tsawwassen is a community just to the south of Vancouver, and was known to us as one of the places the ferries to Vancouver Island depart from and arrive at. What's not known is how Tsawwassen is pronounced. Some say the "T" is silent and others drop the following "s" -- but everyone agrees it's not pronounced "Ts" as in "Tsar." I have no idea what Tsawwassen means (maybe it's native Canadian for "the place of the great big, coffee-serving, floating houses that carry wheeled horses"), but it seems likely that Captain Vancouver did not have a hand in naming the place.

Turns out the Tsawwassen Inn isn't actually in Tsawwassen. It's just down the street in the community of Delta. They could just have called it the Delta Inn and saved me a lot of explanation, but life is imperfect, even in British Columbia. Apart from that, it's a perfectly nice hotel and we were soon checked in and unpacked.

After strolling around the neighborhood for an hour to orient ourselves, get some Canadian money from a teller machine, scope out the local restaurants and just generally not being in a sitting position, we enjoyed a drink, a light dinner and a nice chat with Irv in the hotel lounge. After that, it was time for the first event of the meet: the briefing for Friday's (tomorrow's) drives, for those who had arrived early enough to take them.