Saturday, April 08, 2006

Crossing the Border

The drive was uneventful until we got to the border where traffic piled up a bit more. We lucked out and the border guards opened a new lane, which we were the first ones into. We pulled up and the guard asked us a few questions:

“How many people are in the car?”

“Five.”

“Where are you from?”

“Washington.”

“May I see id for everyone in the car?”

I handed him a packet of birth certificates, Heather’s passport and my expired official passport.

“Why do you have an official passport?”

“I was in the military.”

“Past tense?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

‘Vancouver.”

“What’s in Vancouver for you?”

“We are going for the weekend.”

“Do you have anything that could be dropped off in Vancouver?”

I’m thinking to myself, I’ve got kids, they could lose their own heads if they weren’t permanently attached.

“No.” Ohh, living dangerously.

“Enjoy your weekend.”

He sent us on to our way in to Canada.

Heather said that this crossing was much more serious and had a lot more questions than when she drove to Alaska.

The border crossing on I-5 (Canada 99) leaves you in Surrey, one of the communities around Vancouver. The roads to Vancouver all take you through city streets, through neighborhoods.
With all the darkness, it doesn’t really seem like there is a city in front of you. As we found out, there are also a series of hills that hide Vancouver from you. We passed under the river and the city was before us – we could see some tall buildings finally.

We drove into Vancouver and drove past a Dollar store. Heather commented that is was such a great deal – really it is like an 89 cent store (there’s that joke again, but this time from Heather).
We found our hotel and checked in. It’s a nice hotel, clean and well apportioned. Priceline calls it a 3 star, it is a fine hotel, nothing special to it. We have to pay extra for parking in their garage (6’ 9” tall, funny not 2.07 m tall) and our Expedition just fits in.

It was about 9:45 when we got in our room and promptly went to bed.

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