Crossing the border to Vancouver, Ay!

So we set out for Vancouver, Canada not realizing to the full extent what border patrol had in store for us. We left Seattle a little later than planned because we were busy working on the blog, uploading all our trip videos and pics, but we were determined to get to Canada either way. Seattle is not too far from the Canada border and after the border, Vancouver is only like 30-40 miles so we figured a couple hours drive and sail through border patrol and get there in no time. Well... little did we know, there is an hour long wait on the highway just to get to the border. But we were optimistic, after all, we had nothing to hide.

We sat in line, watching all these silly Canadians keep getting out of their cars and fidgeting with their purchases in the trunk. We come to find out later, why all the fidgeting. So..here we are, next car up...the signal light turns green and this is it...the moment of truth. We handed our passports to the cute, innocent-looking asian girl at the counter. She looked at us with a most serious face and proceeded to ask us several questions. It went like this: What brings you to Canada? How long will you be staying in Vancouver? You drove all the way from Florida to stay in Canada for a few days? What do you do for work? How much money do you have on you? And get this...She even asked Ryan and I how much money we had in our savings and checking accounts? Can you believe they are allowed to ask that? Ridiculous!

Well, after our dealings with the border patrol in New Mexico, we realized that these people have no sense of adventure and totally do not understand the whole traveling around the country for exploration, discovery and ya know, experience thing. So, naturally she hands us a yellow slip, has us pull over to the side, go into the Canadian border center and try to explain what we are doing to yet another no-nonsense, no adventure, power tripping border patrol. Our slip was yellow and as we noticed early on from the line we were standing in, this colored slip was for the people that drew some red flags. Fabulous! We're in the line with all the drug smuggling, weapon carriers, this will be be quick, I'm sure!

We waited patiently, remained calm and tried not to make any sudden movements. The young, bald juiced up patrol called us over to his counter. Lucky us...the guy with something to prove. We handed him our slip and passports and I had Ryan do all the talking. I tend to talk too much and tell people more than they need to know, so Ryan was the obvious spokesperson for us. The patrol asked us the same questions yet again. Why are you guys going to Vancouver? For, how long? What do we do for work? At this point, the whole in-between jobs thing wasn't really working in our advantage. So, he asked if there was anything he needed to be aware of in the RV. We said "No". And he took our keys to search the ol' Yella.

We sat anxiously in the waiting area with the rest of the wrongly accused stereotypes. We started to people watch and realized there were a lot of Asian people in the waiting area. Then, one border patrol was hassling a nicely dressed asian woman at the counter, where he was going through her purse and having her take off her jacket and telling her, "This is new, you just bought this, I can tell, it still has creases, you're lying!"So we quickly discovered that you can only bring back so many new goods from the US to Canada and they are real sticklers about it. I mean, I saw them have people pull their pant legs up and check for goods, I thought for a second they were going to check for tags on these poor people's underwear, it was that obtrusive. So at least while we waited for the patrol to invade our privacy and personal belongings, we were mildly entertained.

We sat and sat and sat for what seemed an eternity, but it was really only 2 hours. Ryan had to go to the bathroom and headed for the washroom, but the door was locked. He said to me, "Why is it locked, do I need a key?" And I said, "Maybe someone is in there!" He heard the hand dryer blowing inside and waited at the door. A guy walked out and Ryan went in after, naturally. Wouldn't ya know, right when Ryan goes to the bathroom, I see our tough, bald patrol come back inside. He sat at his counter and looked over at me, noticing Ryan wasn't there. He walked through the back and came through a side door. He approached me and said, "Where did he go?" And I was like, "Oh, he's in the bathroom." Then, he said aggressively, "Who let him in?" I was like, "Uh, well no one, this guy was coming out and.." And without even letting me finish my sentence, the guy quickly jumping on me said, "ugh, Was the door locked?" I hurriedly said, "Yes." He condescendingly replied, "Well, usually when a door is locked that means you can not go in there and you have to ask someone."I immediately replied, "Whoa, sir listen...He tried for the handle, saw that it was locked, then heard someone in there drying their hands, so assumed it was locked because someone was in there and figured he could go in after. I'm sorry, we didn't know." He said, "Fine. Here are your passports, you're free to go." I said with great relief, "Oh great, thank you so much." I turned to walk away, but then he came at me with another question. Oh no, I thought, what now, you said we could go. He asked me, "Who organizes the RV?" I said, "I do, sir." And then do you know what he said to me? He said, "Well, you did a great job organizing everything in there. I have searched a lot of RV's and you wouldn't believe the kind of messes I've seen. You made it very easy for us out there." What!?!!!  I quickly replied back, "Wow, thank you so much for noticing that. I really appreciate it. You should tell him (Ryan) that." And he walked away. I don't think I got a smile out of him, but man, I was on cloud nine after that compliment. I mean, to get a nice compliment from a tough border patrol guy. That was really nice of him to notice because I put a lot of work in there.

Ryan came out of the bathroom, I told him what happened and then I said "Now, let's get the hell outta here!" Back to the RV we went, with everything still in its perfectly organized place. Ready or not Vancouver, here we come!