Sunday, May 3, 2009

The curse has been lifted...

We crossed into Canada on Sunday morning to attend church.

Then we had a little birthday party for our 6 year old granddaughter.

About 3:00pm we set off for the U.S. border and round 4 of our border crossing challenge. In 3 out of the last 3 crossings we have been escorted from our vehicle for a secondary inspection, no explanation why. That and a DHS TRIP behind us, we approached the border not expecting that there would be any resolution yet.

There was very little traffic; a customs officer was waving us into the last lane and we drove right up to the inspection booth.

"Good Afternoon. Welcome to my lane." (ha! an officer with a sense of humor!)
"Where did you go?"

"We went to church and then to our granddaughter's birthday party," I replied, handing over our passports.

The officer disappeared inside his booth to run our passports through his computer. We held our breath.

He emerged from his booth, "Have a nice day," he said, returning our passports.

YES! Happy dancing in the car! WOOHOO! No More red flags! No more black list! No more whatever-it-was-that-they-couldn't-tell-us that was sending us into repeated secondary inspections!

This was the border crossing routine we knew and loved.

We're back :)

3 comments:

grammy said...

So happy for you! Would have liked to see that happy dance...in the car no less. Birthday celebrations are always so great. Not like when we were the mom and planned, cleaned, baked, dressed kids, played hostess, cleaned up the mess (o: Now we mostly take pictures and kiss babies (o:

heidi @ ggip said...

I have only crossed borders a couple times, but it makes me terribly worried even though I have never had any trouble.

I'm glad yours went smoothly today.

Thanks for your comment on my blog about your husband and explaining his differences after his stroke. My dad was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year (just after the baby was born) and this is a slower process, so I think the kids are getting used to it as we go along.

It's definitely always good to see another viewpoint!

Joyce said...

What a relief for you. I'm thankful.

We often travel to Canada, too. Troubles at the border can be such a trial.