Don’t you wonder when and how the birds get the signal that it’s time to head south. In my case it’s when it starts to get cold. Whenever someone mentions “you have to wear layers”, I’m out of here. This year I’ve left the admiral at home. She is helping out with the new grandchild Alexandra (Alex). I’m not alone, I have Captain Ricky with me.
We are traveling in our new old travel trailer (“Clark that there is an RV”). We are pulling it with ML’s new Colorado diesel pickup. For a little variety we are going through the Sault and I75.
Even though we are completely legal it is still nerve wracking to cross the border. We did have a little food and a part bottle of rum. We practiced answering the question we assumed would be asked; “Have you ever smoked marijuana”? Rick kept getting it wrong so we continued to practice.
The border wasn’t very busy and we drove right up to the ICE agent “where are you from he asked”? Rick screamed “I’ve never smoked marijuana” and then asked me if he got it right. The agent tried again “when you don’t smoke marijuana where do you live”?
We passed him our passports, it was getting intense. He then asked “What do you have in your camper”? I either misheard or mis-listened. “What camper”? Then he started thinking marijuana again. He pointed to our travel trailer with his head as if reminding me. “Oh our trailer” I put things together, finally. Rick offered “these Americans have a different word for everything”.
“What food do you have”? his frustration was palpable. “Nothing on the list” I scrambled to reply. I rhymed off everything one could possible eat that we might have. Then he says “when were you in the ‘States last, I don’t see any history here”. In full panic mode now I blurted out all my comings and goings to the USA, I had no idea of the year or month… Then the screen appeared to light up and suddenly it was over “Ok, carry on”. It was over, we were in.
We pushed all the buttons and finally converted the instruments to American. I had done the conversion in my head and 120 km per hour would equal 75 American miles per hour. The trees and cars were flashing by. OMG we were already converted, 120 mph is too fast to pull our trailer/camper. We got things slowed down and some cargo had shifted as we passed through the wormhole of Kilometers to American miles per hour.
I have a rule that we will not travel in the dark with our camper. I started looking for a place. I have an app for that. We found a year round place near Wolverine Michigan. I’m not making this up… Wolverine. I called the place up and she said “We have a spot for you”.
We arrived a bit later and my vision of the lady from the phone call was way off. She had a nice full set of teeth (on the counter). “The water is shut off”, “you can choose whatever spot you want”. There is a lot of stuff, trailers campers, goats, ducks, rabbits. We got the camper set up and at least plugged in to electricity. We were home.
Now our only problem is to find a place to vote. Today is the infamous mid term election. Vote early and vote often. more later