Port Huron, Michigan, USA
Trip Start
Mar 26, 2008
1
36
60
Trip End
Dec 07, 2008
Port Huron,
Michigan,
United States
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
We discussed hiding them under the chairs, or tossing them out and crossing without them, but decided to fess up to the border guard. She was lovely and very sympathetic, but sent us to immigration. They were also nice and informed us that not even when hell froze over would we get our kids into Canada without passports(they didn't exactly use those terms but you get my drift)
In the meantime I rang back to Chicago and got Marie to take a look around and she found that they had fallen out of the bag and were under our bed.
Not fancying a six hour drive back to Chicago, Marie kindly found out the quickest way we could get them and we were ready to receive them by special fedex courier that night at around midnight
Arriving at the border
. OK, expensive, ($500) but that was progress. The next step was to get back into the US without two passports. After various forms were filled on the Canadian side and then we had queued to get to the US side and we answered all the questions that just reinforced how stupid we were on the American side, we found a hotel right by the border and determined to try again in the morning, hopefully with passports in hand.
As it turns out the hotel was great, we had a cool room with a jungle room for the kids with bunk beds and a jungle theme and our room was light and airy. There was a pool and complementary cookies and breakfast. We were set! We enjoyed a great nights sleep and awoke fresh to find our passports waiting. The hotel laid on a good breakfast and we hit the road for the 400 mile trip to our next destination, Sudbury in Ontario, Canada.
Comments
sympathy and chuckles
We didn't know whether to laugh or cry when we read your border story, so did a little of each. The laughing part came from, 'Oh, my, it's a relief to know that even such organized travellers as you can run into glitches like we do!' And our daughter lost her brand new Canadian passport (renewed while in the UK) the day before she was moving back to Canada from England.
Anyway, we are happy it all worked out for you in the end.
When will you be at Jamie and Ellen's? We can send Cass's package there. Don't know if you received our email, so will send again.
We are sorry to hear that you are cutting your trip short, but hope everything goes well for you from now on!!
Cheers and hugs,
Jean and Art