Peticanoe

A few years ago, Amy and I took a road trip down to Florida to visit Disneyworld and meet some of my Imaginary Friends (the term Amy coined for the people I know solely via the internet).  We crossed the border at Buffalo at about 5:30am as we were driving a very, very long way and wanted to avoid some of the day’s heat in our un-airconditioned Toyota Echo.

Since we were Canadians, we barely slowed down through customs on our side of the border, paying only the bridge toll and receiving a friendly wave from the customs official.  Canada customs gives a really good impression to most people who are coming into our country.  They just seem to be happy to see you and they really want to know if you’ve got any fruit.

The yankee side of the bridge was a different story.  It’s always the third degree: WHERE ARE YOU GOING. HOW LONG WILL YOU BE THERE. DO YOU HAVE GUNS.  DO YOU HAVE ALCOHOL. DO YOU HAVE TOBACCO. DO YOU WANT SOME I HAVE SOME HERE.

Our guy was kind of annoyed.  I’m not sure if that was due to living in Buffalo, him starting his shift really early in the morning or having worked all night.  Hard to say.  Likely all three.  We stopped at the line marked ‘stop’ and I rolled down my wind for the interrogation.
“WHERE ARE YOU HEADED.”
“Florida”
“HOW LONG WILL YOU BE THERE.”
“About a week.”
“ARE YOU FLYING OR DRIVING.”

Now this took me a minute.  It hadn’t occurred to me that  people would drive across to Buffalo airport and fly to other parts of the US.  We actually did this in 2006 or 2007 to go to a wedding in Galveston, Texas.  At the time though, it took a whole lot of self control not to say “What does this look like, a Cessna?”  I answered “Driving” after giving him a look that, had the light been better, would have resulted in several hours of detainment and possible inclusion on the no-fly list at a bare minimum.