Did I say that crossing the border was super easy?   Oops.  I guess that’s a one way thing.

Being on the road – on “vacation” if you will – for long periods of time, while awesome in all the ways you might expect, does have a couple of distinct issues.   Getting mail can be a challenge, and prescriptions especially are a stupid big headache.   It’s a long story filled with pathos and frustrations, but suffice it to say that for a variety of reasons it was easier in the long run for us to take a trip back over the border to pick up some mail – including medications –  at a US Post Office in the good ol’ USA.  Our campground was about 5 miles from the border and a USPS office as the crow flies, (How often do you get to use that in a sentence?) but to get to a Post Office near a border crossing was closer to a 40 mile trip. (of course)  That’s doable.  With the expected border wait, maybe a couple hours round-trip at the outside and we’re back home.  Easy peasy.

Nope.  See, here’s the thing.  We bought some firewood.  Back in Kalama, Washington actually.  For various reasons mostly involving rain, we hadn’t used it all and the remainder was in the bed of my truck.  The super relaxed American border guy didn’t mention it, but the uncool Canadian dude gave our truck bed the once over and we got the border stink-eye.  Apparently, it is not cool to take firewood back and forth across the border.  I did not see that on any of the scads of web pages I read about what to do in preparation for crossing the border, and, as Adam Sandler said… this was something you could have told me YESTERDAY!!

And here’s the thing… it’s not just a matter of, “Oh crap.  My bad.  Point me to where I can toss this and we’ll get out of your hair.”  No.  Now they have to search your vehicle, and you have to head into the office for further questions.  Then you have to walk/carry ALL the wood back across the border to a house about 2 blocks away that will accept it, (for resale of course) come back to the office, fill out a form and then you get to go on your merry way.  All in all, about an hour and a half (at least) of fun and frolics, and our 2 hour trip was now a 4 hour trip.

So, we finally move on from the border to the USPS office – 2 blocks from the border.  In retrospect, it would have been quicker and easier just to walk over to the post office, had we known how close it was.  Hindsight is always 20/20.

And now… the kicker.  The package we were going through all this firewood hoop-jumping to get was not there.  Ugh.   You see, despite vigorous and explicit efforts to attempt to get your mailing partner to send your package to the post office by US mail, you may wind up getting it sent via UPS, which the post office will not accept.  Add another hour and a half of searching and “conversations” with the post office officials and various phone calls with the sender and the original mailing location and we are now in this for 6 hours.  Again… ugh.

Back across the border, where we got to wave goodbye to our firewood that was literally within easy viewing distance from the main highway as we headed back.

Bottom line, eventually we did get our package and prescriptions about a week and half later, but the prescription taker was not happy.  Lessons were learned about life and love, firewood, the border and the US Mail, and now we are on to Birch Bay, WA.