Day 10, July 19, 2011 - Going Through Customs

We traveled from Great Falls, MT to High River, Alberta, Canada today. We had really been dreading the process of going through customs, but it wasn’t bad at all. We pulled up to the entrance for motorcoaches and the customs man stuck his head out the window and told Jimmy to shut off the engine so that we could hear him!!! That was fairly logical given the situation. I had gathered all of the information that we thought we would need to get through customs – our passports, the vehicle title, the vehicle registration, the vehicle insurance, the shot records for the two cats and their health certificates. Just so you know, Peaches and The Bear had to go have physicals before we left. They had fecal exams – which required the insertion of a plastic thing into their rear ends – and which neither of them was particularly happy. And, guess what, the customs guy did advised that he would trust us that we had the health certificates. Of course, this was after he asked us the following: how long will you be in Canada (Jimmy’s response – about ten days); do you have anything that you will leave in Canada (Jimmy’s response – no); do you have any weapons (Jimmy’s response – no); do you have any alcohol (Jimmy’s response – 1 bottle of Jack Daniel (he actually said bourbon), 1 bottle of wine (he forgot my three little boxes of wine), and 12 cans of beer (that was exactly right)). I honestly believe that the customs guy thought that anyone who knew down to the can how much beer they had probably was doing everything by the book.

Except for a few small changes, you could almost not tell that you had crossed into Canada. The first thing we noticed is that there is not one sign that says speed limit. We saw a lot of signs that said maximum 110. It only took us one or two signs to figure out that meant that the maximum speed was 110 kilometers per hour maximum. Luckily, I had downloaded an application on my phone before we left the good ole USA which would convert metric to US measures. I was able to quickly tell him how fast we could go!!! After a few speed signs, we got fairly good at estimating – plus Jimmy was able to quickly read the metric speed indicators on the speedometer!!!

We stopped at the first information center we came to so that we could have lunch and pick up a few brochures. I think we might have gotten one of each brochure and map that they had relative to Calgary south in Alberta. Then we took our crackers, ham and turkey out to the picnic table. We then saw our first critter – we think it was either a marmot. It wasn’t a squirrel because it didn’t have a big tail. It didn’t come to where we were eating – it just dived into a hole.

Then back on the highway and Jimmy sees an elk leaning up against a fence. I didn’t see it, so it did not count as a sighting – in my opinion.

After that, the drive was just unremarkable other than seeing field after field of grass being cut and bailed and an equal number of fields of the prettiest yellow plants. We challenged our mental capabilities to try to figure out what it was, but there was nothing that we could think of. When we got to High River and the RV park operated from May to October by the local Lion’s Club, we found out that the beautiful fields were saffron. The lady in the office also told us that the fields would change color once more before the saffron was harvested – they would become an even brighter yellow. The landscape was gently rolling fields with a modern four lane highway running almost due north. It was not an interstate in the way we understand an interstate to be. It was not limited access, it ran right through a few of the towns (including stop lights), but it was very well maintained. Plus, we weren’t doing but 60 anyway – since we were getting over 7 miles to a gallon once we started driving 60!!! And, we knew that 60 was less than the speed limit – and we did see multiple vehicles stopped!!!

I told Jimmy that I didn’t care where we had dinner, but we needed to eat somewhere they had wifi. There was an A&W Root Beer, a Dairy Queen, a MacDonald’s and a Boston Pizza. I picked the Boston Pizza – even though it was a chain restaurant – it was one in which I had never eaten. Guess what – their wifi was not working. So, we ate, paid and left. We drove to the side of the A&W Root Beer place, high their wifi and cleared out our emails.

More on the trip tomorrow.