We left the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and headed to Sault St. Marie on the Canadian side of the St. Mary’s River. It was interesting seeing the locks from the bridge:
During our travels we have heard horror stories from fellow RVers regarding crossing the border into Canada. Our personal experience has been fine the prior four times we crossed last summer on our way to Alaska. The most horrific story is when border control officers search your vehicle. Now, if you are in a car that search doesn’t pose much of a time consuming activity, but when in the Busse Bus with all your belongings tucked away nicely it does.
This time may prove to be different. After waiting our turn in line, we pulled up and talked with the very nice officer.
Similar questions as before: How many are you? Two. Passports? Yes, and handed them to him. Pets? Yes, one dog (still missing Sydney). Vaccinations proof? Yes, handed him our vet paperwork. Do you have a CCW? No. We haven’t actually received them in the mail yet so I didn’t lie. Alcohol? Yes. What? Eight beers, five bottles of wine,,,,What size are the bottles? I don’t know. Regular size. I was trying to think metric here, but I wasn’t fast enough. Bear spray? Yes. What kind? I don’t know. I bought it in Canada last year on our way to Alaska. You bought bear spray in Canada? It could have been in Alaska. I don’t really remember. Ok, here are your passports back. Pull your vehicle over to the curb because we need to see the bear spray and check on the sizes of your wine bottles. Ok.
Now Kat and I are starting to freak a bit. Two officers come over and ask us where the bear spray and the wine is in the vehicle. We can’t remember where we put the bear spray. They tell us to step outside and stand in front of the Busse Bus so that they can search the vehicle. Yikes! Suddenly I remember that we moved the bear spray to the outside pegboard area in the garage. Kat shows one of the officers where and he looks at it and says it’s ok. Meanwhile I take the other officer inside and start pulling out wine bottles from the storage area under our table. Pull out four of them, all smaller size. The officer says ok. I walk him back out of the coach where he and the other one tell us that we are good to go. Thank goodness! What a mess it would have been to repack the entire coach! After we got set up at the campground, Kat and I were so frazzled that we each took a shot of whisky and vodka!
We stayed about three miles, er, kilometers down the road at the St. Ignace KOA. Very nice KOA, seems like that’s all we are staying in these days. Besides the typical tent sites, RV sites, and cabins this one had tepees and cute decorations:
Our site was nice and had a nice picnic area. So nice that we spent a night “in” cooking out.
Used the following day to catch up on emails, wash, etc. until dinner where we drove downtown along the river to eat at the View which was inside Delta hotel. There was a wedding rehearsal going on which we could recently relate to. It was very nice having a true down day. We decided that we actually should be planning down days throughout our travels.
0 Comments