I am still full from a meal I ate yesterday. Needing to get out of the city, Anya and I drove south to Washington, looking for a scenic drive called Chuckanut Drive. Crossing the border into the US usually makes me paranoid. Not that I have any reason to be paranoid, but the guns, the pictures of GWB, the thought that some of these guards could throw me into detention without any regard to my civil rights makes me a little anxious. However yesterday I had the shortest conversation with any customs officer I have ever had, and I have crossed the border probably 500 times. It went like this:

me: Hello
Customs man: Got any merchandise?
me: No
Customs man: move along

It was not the brevity of the questions that baffled me, but the choice of question. Why would a Canadian travelling to the US bring merchandise to the US?

Anyway, I wanted to have a greasy breakfast, and I found it in Mt Vernon. It was called "The Home Cook Inn". It had a screen "flap" where the kitchen door should have been, and from the inside came the shouts and sounds of a busy diner on a Sunday morning. A bucket of fry oil held the screen flap in place. Inside we were greeted by a teenage hostess. I ordered corn beef hash 'n' eggs, which turned out to be the largest portion of food I have ever been served. The hash browns were grated, just the way I like them.