Dakx Turcotte

Crossing the Canadian Border

One of my biggest stress on this trip was the point where we would have to re-enter Canada. We are driving this train back in Canada and I have no idea of how it actually really works… I read on some websites, forums and more how foreign people can come live in Canada, but it focuses mostly on getting a VISA… But I am Canadian, I have a passport and I was gone for a little over 18 months… Can’t be that hard to come back, right?

Well, to our own surprise, it turned out well. But we were quite prepared. Here’s what I did to make it work:

1. I gathered all of my paperwork from when I moved to Seattle 18 months ago, including the bill of transport with inventory from that first shipment
2. I gathered all of my original paperwork for my car, to prove that I had bought it in Canada prior to moving to Seattle in the first place, including bill of sale, immatriculation, copy of drivers license, etc…
3. I gathered all of my new car data from the State of Washington
4. We made a complete list (inventory) of what was in the cube van, detailed by box or item number, on a single page spreadsheet
5. Put all that together in a folder with our passports, driver license, U-Haul rental paperwork

Once we showed up to the border, we were ready. We showed up in the wrong section, commercial trucks instead of recreational vehicles… But we had a truck… Anyways. They sent me to immigration to get some paperwork officialized there, then I went back to get our train searched. They asked me a few questions but never searched the train. They just told me: Welcome back, glad you are back!

I was stunned. It actually took me a good 5 minutes to realize that we were in Canada, fully legal, on our way home! Overall, crossing the border took less than 20 minutes. It took me more than that in the past just to go visit family for a weekend in the US!

Anyways, we made it. It was easier than expected but we were quite ready. And I have to say that the Canadian border agents were very very nice. They welcomed me back in Canada, they were smiling. They weren’t like typical US border and immigration agents. Now I knew I was in Canada!

Dakx

We Made It!!

Hi all!!!

We made it home very late on our fifth day on the road! We’re in Quebec City. We slept for a few good hours but we still have to unpack the train. So here we go now. The weather is horrible, winter is coming to Quebec! It’s cold, rainy, and we’ll probably get snow soon. We actually saw some on the road yesterday. Thank god we moved quick to leave Seattle!

I miss everyone already! I will post more stuff today and tomorrow! This is our 8th consecutive day of traveling, packing, moving, etc… I could not have done it without Dad. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

More to come later!

Dakx

Monday, 4th Day on the Road, In Canada!!

Our fourth day started slowly. We were hard to get out of bed!! Some may consider this trip a vacation, but it’s far from it. Driving around 12 hours a day is harder than we expected. Now I fully understand the regulations for transport van drivers to stop every 8 hours. Of course, we don’t have a bedroom in our train, so we try to push ourselves a little more and stop for a good night sleep in good places.

Today, we covered less mileage than the previous two days, but we still had a lot to go through and were on the road for a long time. We left Madison, WI at 10am and headed toward Chicago! The drive to Chicago was great, but the drive in Chicago was looooooong! We hit lunch time traffic I guess. And we made a mistake that made us loose at least 1 hour. Sucks but after having driven over 2,000 miles, it’s not surprising.

So we pushed it and decided to stop very quickly for lunch later in the afternoon and keep driving toward Port Huron, MI, where we want to cross the border into Canada. We decided to cross in Port Huron for a few reasons: we skip having to go through Detroit, where we could hit more traffic, the distance between Chicago and London, ON is the same whether we take go through Detroit/Windsor or through Port Huron/Sarnia and we believe crossing the border in Port Huron will be easier and less busy.

Today, we crossed the remaining part of Wisconsin, all of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and, after crossing the Canadian border in Port Huron, MI, we settled in London, Ontario, Canada! We are now in the Eastern Time Zone, same as Quebec City, our final destination on this trip.

Our total mileage on this fourth day was 552 miles (888 km), over 11 hours of driving.

More updates on our border crossing and more later!

Dakx

Sunday, 3rd Day on the Road, 3 States in One Day!!

There is a huge advantage to drive on flat lands: distance! Moreover, the speed limit in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin is 70-75 mph, equivalent to about 110-120 km per hour, so we can cover even more distance. Thank god we didn’t drive through Canada! :)

Today was another productive day, we crossed most of North Dakota, all of Minnesota, most of Wisconsin and settled ourselves in Madison, WI.  Our drive covered 696 miles (1,120 km) over about 11.5 hours, plus a half hour for lunch, for a total of 12 hours.

Leaving Bismarck, we passed Fargo, where we hit the residuals of an earlier snow storm and took I-694 that surrounds the Twin Cities of Minneapolis – St-Paul. We didn’t see anything of the Twin Cities except for a sign on the freeway! Oh well, we just want to get to Quebec!

Our initial thought was to stop in the Twin Cities for the night but we decided to push it and try to reach Eau Claire or even Madison, WI. Looking on the GPS, we found a Courtyard Marriott, our hotel of choice for this trip, right on the side of the highway we were following in Madison. So we kept driving and, given the good conditions we were lucky enough to get that evening, we reached Madison, WI without any problems! After food at a nearby Chicago UNO Pizza and a few drinks, we snored the night away without any issues! Our third day had been a long day, with hard driving conditions along the way.

Our goal for Monday: cross Chicago, IL and the border with Canada! No small task with the train full of stuff! More news to come!

Dakx