Canadian Border & Plattsburgh, NY
After dropping Mike off at the rental car office in Burlington, Alex, Lobo and I headed north toward Canada. It was only a one hour drive to the border and another 45 minutes from there to Montreal (apparently most of the 45 million Canadians live within about an hour or two drive from the US), so I started visualizing the border crossing elements…dog papers, fruits and vegetables, and my passport. Hmmm…did I pack my passport? I am pretty sure that I did because I remember getting it out and looking at the expiration date, but wait, maybe that was to make sure that it didn’t expire before Rhonda and I traveled to Morocco in February? Then I realized that I can’t exactly pull up to the security line and start searching through the RV for my passport, that could take hours. Well, turns out that I did leave my passport at home, which is pretty commonplace for me traveling in North America now that I have left it at home twice after crossing into Mexico and once attempting the same into Canada. Before Sept. 11 one did not carry a passport into Mexico or Canada. I have been to British Columbia at least 4 times and Mexico about 40 times without a passport. It just doesn’t sink in for me…I guess old and set in my ways. Long story short, I made new plans to hang out in Northern Vermont and New York for the weekend while waiting for my passport to arrive by FedEx. I was about to pay for 3 nights at a campground when I shared my lame story with the ladies checking me in and they said that they were pretty sure that I could cross into Canada with basic ID and then have my passport FedEx’d into Montreal, for it was only needed to coming back into the States. So I decided what the heck, I would try to run the boarder and see what happens. I almost made it through, but the two French Canadian border guards (I picked a tiny crossing point on purpose…there were only two there total) argued with each other for 30 minutes in French about whether to let me in. They kept asking me if I had a copy of my birth certificate…now who in the heck carries that around? They finally decided that I needed some proof of US citizenship so that they didn’t get stuck with me in their country and no way for them to deport me if needed (apparently Canada now has a very high immigration flow and it is getting complicated for them to manage). It was an interesting experience and worth the effort, but back to the campground. I had a very productive weekend cleaning the RV, doing nearly 2 weeks worth of laundry, running errands and catching up on a pile of work that I ignored for the past 10 days. I met a really great group of people from Buffalo that were really friendly and talkative and all my age. I was the only one in my camping section when I went to bed, but when I awoke, the other 8 spaces were filled with a caravan of friends all with pop-up campers who had travelled from Buffalo to Plattsburgh, NY for a week-long vacation together.Still can’t figure out how Plattsburgh is a vacation from Buffalo?While on the road, I figured that I might catch up on my Spanish Rosetta Stone studies, but then Mike pointed out how lame that was while traveling through Quebec. Plattsburgh, where I spent the weekend, is just 30 minutes from Quebec and wow were there a lot of French speaking Canadians vacationing there. Most of the language around me was not in English. So, on an impulse purchase, I grabbed the Rosetta Stone French package at the check out counter at Best Buy and decided that I would redirect my language plans. Good thing…cause I had no idea how French the Province of Quebec was going to be!
After dropping Mike off at the rental car office in Burlington, Alex, Lobo and I headed north toward Canada. It was only a one hour drive to the border and another 45 minutes from there to Montreal (apparently most of the 45 million Canadians live within about an hour or two drive from the US), so I started visualizing the border crossing elements…dog papers, fruits and vegetables, and my passport. Hmmm…did I pack my passport? I am pretty sure that I did because I remember getting it out and looking at the expiration date, but wait, maybe that was to make sure that it didn’t expire before Rhonda and I traveled to Morocco in February? Then I realized that I can’t exactly pull up to the security line and start searching through the RV for my passport, that could take hours. Well, turns out that I did leave my passport at home, which is pretty commonplace for me traveling in North America now that I have left it at home twice after crossing into Mexico and once attempting the same into Canada. Before Sept. 11 one did not carry a passport into Mexico or Canada. I have been to British Columbia at least 4 times and Mexico about 40 times without a passport. It just doesn’t sink in for me…I guess old and set in my ways. Long story short, I made new plans to hang out in Northern Vermont and New York for the weekend while waiting for my passport to arrive by FedEx. I was about to pay for 3 nights at a campground when I shared my lame story with the ladies checking me in and they said that they were pretty sure that I could cross into Canada with basic ID and then have my passport FedEx’d into Montreal, for it was only needed to coming back into the States. So I decided what the heck, I would try to run the boarder and see what happens. I almost made it through, but the two French Canadian border guards (I picked a tiny crossing point on purpose…there were only two there total) argued with each other for 30 minutes in French about whether to let me in. They kept asking me if I had a copy of my birth certificate…now who in the heck carries that around? They finally decided that I needed some proof of US citizenship so that they didn’t get stuck with me in their country and no way for them to deport me if needed (apparently Canada now has a very high immigration flow and it is getting complicated for them to manage). It was an interesting experience and worth the effort, but back to the campground. I had a very productive weekend cleaning the RV, doing nearly 2 weeks worth of laundry, running errands and catching up on a pile of work that I ignored for the past 10 days. I met a really great group of people from Buffalo that were really friendly and talkative and all my age. I was the only one in my camping section when I went to bed, but when I awoke, the other 8 spaces were filled with a caravan of friends all with pop-up campers who had travelled from Buffalo to Plattsburgh, NY for a week-long vacation together.Still can’t figure out how Plattsburgh is a vacation from Buffalo?While on the road, I figured that I might catch up on my Spanish Rosetta Stone studies, but then Mike pointed out how lame that was while traveling through Quebec. Plattsburgh, where I spent the weekend, is just 30 minutes from Quebec and wow were there a lot of French speaking Canadians vacationing there. Most of the language around me was not in English. So, on an impulse purchase, I grabbed the Rosetta Stone French package at the check out counter at Best Buy and decided that I would redirect my language plans. Good thing…cause I had no idea how French the Province of Quebec was going to be!
Okay, I am just learning where to comment, so duplicated this one.
ReplyDeleteHi Robert,
I am really enjoying reading your blog and I can pretend we are with you. I have signed up for one as well and will see how easy it is to include photos, as I am better at expressing myself through that medium, than writing. Busy packing for NM & CO, so will have to play around with travel blogs when we get on the road. Please keep it up!