Border crossing at Detroit (May 30)

We drove from King Waldorf’s to Buchanan, Michigan on my birthday, May 30 (you may have already read about the cafuffle with the campground in Buchanan). The highlights of the day were definitely crossing into Detroit from Windsor, Ontario and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (right outside of Detroit). I’ll let Tim tell you about the museum as it is definitely his domain. I’ll just say that the museum did NOT do a good job at catering to women. Dad, I highly recommend that you visit it (not because of the woman thing) because they have really cool exhibits on cars, airplanes AND agriculture (there may or may not be a picture of me driving a huge tractor floating around). 

Now, onto the border crossing. Tim and I crossed into and out of Canada a few times prior to Detroit and every time Tim was driving. I was inordinately nervous and anxious about it each time. I think its because I like to make a friendly connection with people that I meet and also Tim was acting a little nervous (which is unusual, so that made me MORE nervous). I can tell you, the folks at the border crossing (both U.S. and Canadian) are most definitely NOT friendly or interested in making friends. So, I decided that maybe I should try driving across the border, thinking it would make me less nervous if I were the one actually answering questions. Tim warned me that the Detroit border crossing was not as laid back as the ones in the Thousand Islands…trust me, they did not feel laid back to me. I felt like I could do it, though and I like challenging myself to do scary things, so we set off.

Our view from the car before crossing into USA.

 

So, we drive through the tunnel into Detroit, get to the crossing, wait patiently for a few minutes for our turn. My breathing starts getting shallower and shallower, I’m starting to sweat, and then we pull up to the gate. The guy asks, “how are you folks doing?”…and I didn’t know what to say! It was the first time that someone was so pleasant and cordial to us when it came to border crossing. So, I finally gathered myself and answered his question and all the other typical questions (where are you traveling from, where are you going to, what do you do for work, etc, etc) and he let us go through! It was, by far, the easiest crossing we had had. Tim and I looked at each other, breathed a big sigh of relief and said, “that was nothing!” 

I pull out slowly and around the corner and notice two other border control officers standing in the road, walking towards my car.  They wanted to talk to me! Immediately, I started sweating again and hyperventilating as I rolled down my window for these two guys. One starts talking to me while the other starts looking in and around the backseat (there’s A LOT of stuff) and I start wondering if they’re going to search the car…which would take a VERY long time with all the camping stuff. The guy asks, “are you carrying narcotics?” and “where have you been, how long were you there,” and all sorts of other questions. Finally, he looks at his partner, shrugs and waves us on. We drive off, get to a stop light, I ask Tim where he thinks we should go, and he says, “I don’t care, just get us away from here.” 

I couldn’t believe it. The one time that I drive through the border crossing, we get a secondary interrogation from scary U.S. border security officers. Maybe it’s just bad luck…or maybe I’m bad luck. They probably could tell that I was very nervous and possibly suspicious. I should have told them that I brought a ball of yarn back into the country…I feel like such a rebel. I’ll probably do another border crossing at some point; I’m a glutton for punishment. 

Finally, my recommendation on visiting Detroit: don’t. It’s really sad to drive through because so much of the city has been decimated by the recession and loss of automotive economy.In fact, all of Michigan had this feel of disrepair to it that was disappointing and unfortunate. 

Soon enough you'll hear about our brief, inadvertent tour of Chicago (complete with deep dish pizza!) and our adventures in Madison, Wisconsin where we've spent the last few days with Tim's sister. 

Love, Bonnie