Date:         Tue, 11 Dec 2001 21:35:39 -0500
Reply-To:     Isaac Taylor <itaylor@MEDIAONE.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Isaac Taylor <itaylor@MEDIAONE.NET>
Subject:      Re: Crossing the Border the easy way (NO VANAGON CONTENT)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>The bacon is bigger.  No, I'm not moving to Canada.
>
> Chris,

YES!  A man after my own heart.

But seriously, I was grilled like never before crossing from Vermont into
Quebec at Stanstead a few weeks ago.  I was with a buddy of mine (we're both
mid 20s) and we had packed VERY light for a weekend at the Rallye de
Charlevoix.  The border guard was suspicious enough about my black on black
on black Golf with stripped interior, straight pipe and raucous cam-addled
idle... and then I made the mistake of mentioning I had my passport.  BOOM:
out of the car, in the door, into the chair and the 5th degree for 20
minutes.

In the end they just asked a lot of questions that normally don't get asked
crossing that border.  They were very polite, and didn't search the car, or
luggage.  I found out later that two friends of mine were both asked about
their military training and operational history - which nobody had mentioned
to that point - and I found that very interesting... that a foreign country
(albeit Canada) would have information about US servicemen in their
databases.

At the other extreme, the US guys literally waved me through on the way
home.  Some poor yuppie in the Porsche in front of me was having his
carpeting torn up, so I guess it was my lucky day.  (And here I have
*already* taken the carpeting, the whole interior, out of my car and
everything!)

Isaac in Cambridge