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August 11 - International Roads Meet (Sarnia, ON & Port Huron, MI)

Started by cbeach40, May 27, 2012, 03:01:03 PM

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A.J. Bertin

I had such a great time on this meet. Brian summed up our experience very well. He met me in Lansing where I left my car. Our drive from Lansing to Port Huron was a breeze. We arrived in Port Huron around 10:45 or so, so we had plenty of time to see some things before going to Quay Street Brewing Company. On BL-94, we took pictures of the BL-69 signs with the directional tabs being backward. We also had a chance to walk around downtown Port Huron a bit.

After lunch, we battled some heavy rains for a while. The downpouring of rain came and went in spurts. When we were in the area under the bridge on the Port Huron side, I kept running in and out of Brian Reynolds' car to avoid the rain and then get out when the rain subsided. Despite all that, we all got pretty wet. Eventually, when it was time for the U.S.-only tour participants to leave, we went back to the restaurant where it was still raining very hard. Brian R-K and I had to stop for gas and then knew we needed to stop on the Canadian side and exchange currency before joining everyone at Tim Hortons. It took us close to a half hour to cross the bridge and get through Customs. Brian described our Customs experience well. I was surprised by how many questions the Canadian Customs agent was asking. (It was easier getting back into the U.S. on Sunday surprisingly enough!)

The Canadian side of the tour, led by Chris Beach, was great. We drove through downtown Sarnia and spent some time hanging out under the Bridge in Point Edward. (It had never occurred to me that there's a municipality separate from Sarnia on that side of the bridge.) The rain was pretty much gone by the time we crossed into Canada. The rain could not get through Customs! LOL

The rest of the drive down to our motel in Ridgetown (along Highway 40) was nice. I also enjoyed our tour on Sunday of the St. Thomas and London areas. All in all, it was a great time. Great people, and I believe I may have now gotten over my apprehension of crossing the border.  :)
-A.J. from Michigan


vdeane

I often joke about how "there's no weather in Canada" when looking at weather maps because everything just ends at the border, though I've actually seen snow storms that end on a county line or the Thruway before.  Strange how weather follows roads and political boundaries.

Quote from: A.J. Bertin on August 14, 2012, 12:07:23 PM
I was surprised by how many questions the Canadian Customs agent was asking. (It was easier getting back into the U.S. on Sunday surprisingly enough!)
I suspect they do that if something doesn't look like ordinary tourism.  When I went to Montriel for the mini-meet with AsphaltPlanet, I got a zillion questions and even sent to secondary; a couple months later when Honors went to Ottawa, we were practically waved through.

Never had an issue coming back; closest was going back to the US after a high school trip to Ottawa that took a long time, but that was because they were looking through each passport (or DL + birth certificate; this trip pre-dated the passport requirement, and I suspect matching DLs to birth certificates took a while) and one person was a dual citizen between South Africa and Poland.  Not sure if I'm just lucky or if Dad and I just know how to talk to the US border guards (Dad's also the only person I've heard of who flies a lot to never have an issue with the TSA), but the other Honors students in the van I was driving were amazed at how fast we sailed through US customs.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.



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