It's all over but the credit card bills.....day 20

7:00 AM - Oh not a great night of sleep, but we made it through a night at Super 8 without being murdered in our sleep so that's a win. The free breakfast doesn't look or smell appealing so we head to Denny's for breakfast.

Yes, you read that right, Denny's was the higher quality option.

After breakfast consisting of the usual Denny's options (lots of half decent food, more than most humans could eat), we're back in the car and headed home.

The drive home is fairly uneventful. Tracey is crazy tired so I take over for her for the lousy part of the trip; through Tacoma and Seattle. They really need to do something about the traffic. I mean, I get it is bad at rush hour, but it's 3 PM on a Saturday for chrissake.

Five lanes of traffic, and I can't get by them. I haven't seen a line like that since the Washington Redskins 'Hogs' of the 1980's. 

After we get through there, nothing of note until we get to Bellingham. We stop at Fred Meyer, not far from the Bellingham airport, to pick up a few things that we can't get at home..... and holy crap, they have really upgraded that store! Their wine section (yes I know, like we need MORE wine) has gone from average to INCREDIBLE. They have Opus One! Opus One in Fred Meyer!!!

Hey, it's $6 cheaper here than it was at the winery?!?!? Hmm I wonder if I should get another bottle?

Tracey shoots that idea down pretty quickly. We do pick up a couple bottles of her favorite Chardonnay though and head back to the car to finish our trip. Really not sure exactly what to expect at the border, I've heard some horror stories about trying to bring wine across the border at Sumas.

6:30 PM - We arrive at the border and declare our wine. The guard couldn't be any friendlier, but he informs us we do have to go in and pay a bit of duty and tax on our wine. He says it might be "quite a bit". Hmm that doesn't sound good.

We get inside and organize our receipts so that we know which four bottles we are claiming as exempt and which 11 bottles we will have to pay duty on. We get helped out by another very friendly gentleman who calculates our amount owing at only $75! That's about 1/3 of what I expected, so we head over to the cashier and happily pay them what we owe. The cashier is ANOTHER very friendly guy. Best experience I've ever had at any border, ever. What a difference good, friendly service makes, even at the border. I get that they have a tough job, and it's nice when they can still be pleasant to deal with.

7:00 PM - Home and sooooo tired, but satisfied after a terrific vacation.

Thus ends The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), 2014 edition. Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a chuckle or two (maybe even three!).