My Newbie is Showing

Day 22 Challenge: Entertaining Canadian Border Guards

Day 22 prompt: What is/was the best vacation you have ever been on? If you can’t narrow it down to one, write about a vacation that you hope to take someday; something from your bucket list.





My best vacation is the first one I took with my husband to northern Minnesota. This was back when we were young and stupid and totally in love. It did not matter what we did or that we did not have any real money for anything, we just wanted to be together. We were so spontaneous back then -- no kids, no cares, so we could just go. We just wanted to do the free stuff back then, if it cost money, it had better be for necessities or gas, we were not interested in entrance fees for anything.


Hubby had a motorcycle at that time so we got on it, threw something in a saddle bag and took off. When we got to Two Harbors, I discovered that the tailpipe was too close to the saddlebag and burned my clothes. Only mine, not his. It was a male bike. I called it Nimrod.


But since we were up there, I decided that we might as well do something we had not done before. I suggested it would be a good idea to do lunch in Canada. I would not get away with it now, but back then, we could cross the Canada border with no passport. We did get stopped at the border and that’s when I discovered I had also failed to bring my driver’s license along. I explained that the hubby was driving and I did not know how to operate the motorcycle so the driver’s license was safely tucked in my purse at home. The border guards soon discovered that I was too freakishly naive to be a threat to national security. They let us go over the border for lunch. But! By the time we got back, we got stopped again, probably because they had figured out a way to play with me. I knew they had run the background check on me, but they wanted me to empty my pockets anyway. So I jumped off the bike to empty my jacket pockets for them and ended up dropping everything and chasing paper. I mean really, my jeans were so tight; I could not hide anything in them anyway. Hubby just sat back on the bike, smiled and enjoyed the show while the guards pretended to interrogate me. He was absolutely no support. When they could no longer control their giggles, they let us go back over the border to the U.S.


Ever see a border guards try not to laugh? It’s amazing what you can get away with when you are young and cute.