Greetings from Bellingham Washington.

We decided this morning that the best thing we could do to celebrate the 4th of July, our country’s day of independence, would be to spend it in Canada. We poured the kitties, ratties, birdies, fishies and piggy some huge-ass piles of food and water (the fishies have a whole other tank), threw some clothes in some bags and headed northward.

After driving all day and timing rush hour in Tacoma, Seattle, Everett — really an place along I-5 that might have a rush hour — JUUUST right to maximize the amount of time traveling 60 MPH below the speed limit, we decided to call it a day about 20 miles from Our Neighbors to the North. Tomorrow, after a continental breakfast, we’ll be off to one of the other countries with the unfortunate distinction of sharing a landmass with us. I hope they won’t judge us too strongly for that.

Priority #1 is not hearing any freakin’ fireworks. Based on the rumored politeness levels of the average Canadian, their long wait times for medical care, and laws prohibiting anything that’s loud, smelly or illuminated, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Priority #2 is to acquire some Mountain Dew — and not just because it rhymes. I may have been making up the laws in the prior priority, but one that I’m NOT MAKING UP prohibits translucent soft drinks from containing caffeine in Canada. Which means that Mountain Dew has none. Crazy.

Oh, yeah: Priority #1 was ACTUALLY to make sure we turn off roaming on our Android phones so that we don’t rack up 11K of international data charges, because, even combined, we don’t have enough Twitter followers to qualify for the “50K followers so the rules don’t freakin’ apply to you” discount that Adam Savage gets. We’d actually have to pay our bill, so we’re smart enough to take action to prevent it from happening in the first place.