Trip to Canada

The trip to Canada over the weekend was a lot of fun. Even though we aren’t all that far from the border, we don’t go up there very often, so we feel like quite the “international travelers” when we do! My husband and I have been across the border into Mexico once, and to Canada no more than a half dozen times. We’ve been in 35 states, but never off the North American continent, so we don’t have passports. I understand that passports are now a requirement to fly into Canada, but we have another year or so before they are required for land or water crossings. The cost of acquiring a passport is close to $100 a person, so we chose not to apply for them for this trip. Sounds like we should figure it into the budget before too long, though.

It seems the Canadians are happy to have us visit. The Canadian border guard wasn’t exactly friendly, but he only asked where we were going, and why, and for how long. Took about 2 minutes!

Coming back, the American border guard was friendly enough, but much more suspicious. He needed to see our picture IDs plus birth certificates. He asked the kids how old they were and what grade they were in. (They didn’t know! We homeschool!) Where was our citizenship? What did we do for a living? Where had we been? How long had we been there? What did we buy while we were there? Did we have any weapons, alcohol, or tobacco? What about citrus fruit? Beef? Cuban cigars? He seemed satisfied with our answers but still had to search the RV and the truck… looking, no doubt, for the elusive Cuban cigars! Eventually we managed to convince him that we were not terrorists, nor yet cigar smugglers, so he let us go. All told, that crossing took about 20 minutes. Coulda been worse! He could have discovered the 4 frozen hamburger patties lurking in the trailer freezer after I told him, no, we didn’t have any beef… and we could have been locked up for smuggling beef! *sigh* I really didn’t mean to lie!