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

[cbeach40]

A super-sized roads meet, a chance to meet with fellow roads enthusiasts from both sides of the border. Tours of the improvements on I-94 in Michigan and Hwy 402 in Ontario, plus other highlights on each side.

Depending on participant interest, the event will be set up with two tours, so anyone unable to attend both segments will not miss out.

Hope to see as many of you there as possible!

[hbelkins]

I'm saying "maybe." August is iffy for me right now. My wife will be gone for much of the month and I'll be on critter-sitting duty.

If I do come, I will be good for the USA portion only, as I do not have a passport.

[SP Cook]

If I do come, I will be good for the USA portion only, as I do not have a passport.

Dude, that shocks me. 

I don't know about the Commonwealth, but over here, most government employees (I didn't do it personally) get their boss to send them to some seminar in the Great White North and the state pops for the passport (which is then, of course, good for 10 years).

[oscar]

I'd normally be up for a meet north of the border, but I plan a long road trip to your Arctic territories (minus roadless Nunavut) and Alaska.  Odds are I'll still be on the other side of the continent on August 11 (or any other weekend through Labour Day).

Maybe some other Canada meet later in the year?  Ottawa was under discussion, which would let me do some Autoroute-snagging if the timing is right.

[hbelkins]

If I do come, I will be good for the USA portion only, as I do not have a passport.

Dude, that shocks me. 

I don't know about the Commonwealth, but over here, most government employees (I didn't do it personally) get their boss to send them to some seminar in the Great White North and the state pops for the passport (which is then, of course, good for 10 years).

I had a passport photo taken a few years ago but that's as far as I got with it. I probably have time to get one by August, though.

Farthest they've ever let me go is Louisville, and they wouldn't even do that last year when there was something that I was actually wanting to and willing to go to Louisville for. (Takes a lot to actually make me want to attend something in one of the downtown venues there). I wanted to go to SASHTO and my boss was all for it, but the bigshots in Frankfort were tight with the permission slips and I didn't get one.

[Dr Frankenstein]

A maybe for me. That would allow me to finish clinching 401, 402, and potentially 407 (and use my 50 free kilometres thing). The issue is time, mostly.

[oscar]

If I do come, I will be good for the USA portion only, as I do not have a passport.

If you can get a passport, or a less-expensive alternative like a passport card good for land crossings into Canada and back, you can use the meet to start snagging counties in Canada.  Sarnia would give you one, and if you return to the U.S. via Windsor and Detroit, you'd pick up a second.

I have a full-fledged passport, which is overkill for my Canadian road-tripping, but was needed for a short trip to Europe last year.  Less expensive options for travel within North America have been discussed at length elsewhere in this forum.

[Roadgeek Adam]

I am going to be working soon on the Passport Card issue I have at the moment because I want and likely will, attend this meet.

[rawmustard]

If you can get a passport, or a less-expensive alternative like a passport card good for land crossings into Canada and back, you can use the meet to start snagging counties in Canada.  Sarnia would give you one, and if you return to the U.S. via Windsor and Detroit, you'd pick up a second.

He'd pick up at least four according to mob-rule, since that seems to consider separated municipalities (such as Windsor) different from their surrounding counties. (If you go from Sarnia to Windsor the most direct way, you'll pass through Lambton County, the single-tier municipality of Chatham-Kent, Essex County, and the city of Windsor.)

[A.J. Bertin]

I RSVP'ed on Facebook as a maybe. I am interested in attending, but this summer for me is getting to be pretty jam-packed. It's looking like Michael Koerner's Green Bay meet might be scheduled for August 4 (based on who voted so far in his poll). I'm not committing to that meet either, but I have to admit ... between this meet and the Green Bay meet, I am more interested in this one. I will not attend both.

I may end up going to this meet instead of Green Bay. I do have a passport and would consider participating in both the American and Canadian sides of the tour. Sounds like fun!

[hbelkins]

Count me now as doubtful. My wife is going to be gone for about two weeks in August, and this meet is right up against the time she'd be leaving.

[Dr Frankenstein]

Can I have a link to the meet's facebook page, assuming it does exist?

[Duke87]

This was on my radar at one point, but as fate would have it I'm going to be going to Detroit only a couple weeks prior, so making the trip for this would be awfully repetitive and I shan't be doing so. Besides, I have something else to burn my vacation days on instead.

[A.J. Bertin]

Question ... how will we handle the border crossing? We will of course have our passports with us, but what will the Customs agent say if he sees a car or two full of roadgeeks that don't have any luggage?

What would we say is our reason for visiting the other country without looking suspicious?

I have to admit that I'm a little creeped out by doing roadgeeking that crosses the international border. I will probably participate but I will be nervous as hell during the interrogation. LOL

[vdeane]

I wonder about customs and roadgeeking myself.  I used the "visiting friends" excuse for the Montreal mini-meet and got referred to immigration... the customs agent seemed very unhappy that my trunk was mostly empty, though it also could have been the fact that it was my first time crossing on my own (and therefore dealing with customs... until 2007, I thought of the border checkpoints and glorified toll booths!), that my car is registered to Mom (it never seemed important to transfer the registration before), that I wasn't staying over night (never do for roadmeets at this point; lodging is expensive when you have little income), that my iTrip was on (though the radio volume was muted; does the radio transmission raise suspicions?), or that my last trip before that was three years ago when my AP Government and Politics class visited Ottawa (Canadian customs never bothered to even look at our passports, so there may have been no record of the trip when I was asked about it by the customs officer).  Also, the visiting friends reason might not work any more; invariably, the follow-up questions from customs led to me having to explain what a roadgeek is.

The OP did say two tours, so you might be on your own as far as the crossing goes.

I just noticed in Google that Port Huron is a lot closer to Rochester than I thought it was (note: Google routes through Canada).  Still outside of my range though (10 hour drive round trip).

[Brandon]

Question ... how will we handle the border crossing? We will of course have our passports with us, but what will the Customs agent say if he sees a car or two full of roadgeeks that don't have any luggage?

What would we say is our reason for visiting the other country without looking suspicious?

I have to admit that I'm a little creeped out by doing roadgeeking that crosses the international border. I will probably participate but I will be nervous as hell during the interrogation. LOL

Shopping trip, entertainment.  Port Huron and Sarnia, Detroit and Windsor, and Sault Sainte Marie and Sault Sainte Marie have a lot of cross-border trips for shopping, entertainment, etc.  If crossing at Windsor, just claim you're going to the Windsor Ballet.  Customs will believe a car full of guys doing that. 

[SP Cook]

I am careful with my paperwork.  I have a passport, my DL, and I always get my agent to issue me one of those "your insurance is good in Canada" cards.  Crossed the border lots of times, never an issue.

Until, one time I decided to do a road trip for no reason.  Went up through New England, to Portland and took the overnight ferry (since closed) to Nova Scotia.  Got there at like 6 AM.  Long line at the dock.  Had my stuff ready.  Border guard asked me what I was doing and where I was going.  Said I was just on an auto tour and wanted to visit each of the provences.  He slapped a orange sticker on my windshield and told me to go over to this female colegue.  She spent a half hour looking for stuff, all the time pretending to make small talk, but really trying to trip me up.  I just stuck to my (true) story that I am just a nerdy guy who likes to drive around and see stuff I have not seen before.  She finally gave up (there was nothing to find), stamped some kind of code number in my passport (normally you don't even get an entry stamp for Canada) and asked me if I wanted directions. 

Probably should have told them I was going to a particular place, like "visiting friends" or whatever.

[rawmustard]

Question ... how will we handle the border crossing? We will of course have our passports with us, but what will the Customs agent say if he sees a car or two full of roadgeeks that don't have any luggage?

What would we say is our reason for visiting the other country without looking suspicious?

I have to admit that I'm a little creeped out by doing roadgeeking that crosses the international border. I will probably participate but I will be nervous as hell during the interrogation. LOL

I wondered how long it would to for you (yes, specifically you) to ask this.

I'm heavily thinking of booking a room somewhere on the other side of the border anyway. As usual, I'm open to having roomies. As far as logistics for the touring goes, it could be best if all the people sharing my room cross the border in the same vehicle, although it certainly wouldn't be required (having my party together before those who cross back would be, obviously). Hopefully the tour itinerary will get posted in the coming weeks, as where it goes through in Ontario will likely affect where I want to book and see the following day.

[A.J. Bertin]

I'm heavily thinking of booking a room somewhere on the other side of the border anyway. As usual, I'm open to having roomies. As far as logistics for the touring goes, it could be best if all the people sharing my room cross the border in the same vehicle, although it certainly wouldn't be required (having my party together before those who cross back would be, obviously). Hopefully the tour itinerary will get posted in the coming weeks, as where it goes through in Ontario will likely affect where I want to book and see the following day.

Sounds good to me. I'd be open to staying overnight somewhere in the Sarnia area.

[Dr Frankenstein]

If I do go, I'll most definitely need lodging too, and I'll be happy to share a room with whoever.

Regarding the crossing, I fully expect the "How do you guys know each other?" question to come up, as it has many times during trips organized on other non-roadgeek forums I'm part of.

[vdeane]

Yeah, that's the part I always get tripped on.   For Canada I gave the answer that we met on an internet forum.  The regular customs officer wanted to know if we had met in person before (no), and immigration wanted me to tell them about AA roads (writing everything down on a piece of paper).  For US I said we share a hobby which led straight to explaining roadgeeks.

I think I'm too honest for my own good.  The only way to win seems to be to lie.

[cbeach40]

Don't worry about the border. I cross often enough that it was worth it for me to get a Nexus card. For a typical person crossing the border, they're looking to make sure you're not bringing in anything you shouldn't (drugs, firearms, etc).

Anyway, depending on how this all goes we'll see how we divvy up the car occupants. If you're concerned with that, then ride with someone who's familiar with that sort of stuff.

And if you are talking to a customs agent, just be polite, directly answer their questions, and you'll be on your way in no time. It's not a big deal at all.

[Brandon]

For customs, don't volunteer any additional information - EVER.  Just answer their questions, tourism usually works well as an answer for the "why you are here".

[rawmustard]

For those who haven't already seen the event update on Facebook and not knowing when the OP might be updated, lunch is at Quay Street Brewing Company, 330 Quay St, Port Huron, MI. (It's just to the northeast of where the business loops cross the Black River. Also note that according to the website, lunch service starts at 11:30.)

[Dr Frankenstein]

I still can't find the facebook event for the meet.