We had some interesting border crossings into Canada and back. We were told more moose than people cross at the tiny crossing from Maine into Québec. We did get interrogated a bit by the cheeky French Canadian border crossing guard who had hipster glasses, but no sense of humor. The exchange went something like this:
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “Where are your plates from?”
Trent: “Tennessee.”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “Is it a rental car?”
Trent: “No, we own it.”
Casey: “Excuse me, sir, would you like to see the 42 pages of paperwork we have for our cat and dog?”
Trent: “Casey, hush.”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “You drove here from Tennessee?”
Trent: “Yes, we’re from Tennessee.”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “How many guns do you have?”
Trent: “Wait, what? We don’t have any guns.”
Casey: “Are you sure you would not like to see our cat’s papers? I have them right here in this manila envelope I’ve been carrying around for the last month for precisely this moment.”
Trent: “Seriously, Casey, shut up.”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “Are you sure you don’t have any guns?”
Trent: “We don’t even own a gun.”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: “You do know the laws are very different here in Canada than they are in Tennessee. You have no guns at all? We are very liberal here.”
Trent: “So are we! We live like Europeans!”
Cheeky French Crossing Guard: … (long stare)
Trent: … (returns long stare)
Casey: “Um, I have the cat’s papers right here. Are you sure you don’t want to just take a quick peek?”
Cheeky French crossing guard: “Enjoy Québec”
I wanted to be equally cheeky and say “Aw, man, I left my squirrel rifles at home,” but I’ve learned not to screw around at the border since our fiddle player from Hank Flamingo, Stuart Stuart (not a typo), signed his name as Henny Youngman and got us all cavity searched.
Our crossing back into the US was much less pleasant as we sat on the huge Blue Water Bridge for hours swaying just gently enough to make all four of us ready to puke. We weren’t for sure if it was just reentering the terrifying reality that is the United States right now or motion sickness. Hard to say for sure. Canada felt like freedom and not a police state. We’ll spare you the play-by-play with our US crossing guard, but needless to say, he did not want to look at our pets’ paperwork either, despite Casey’s best efforts.
If you think all of Michigan is like Detroit, you are very wrong. We made a wrong turn looking for our primitive cabin and ended up in a white supremacist compound where a 13-year-old boy driving a pickup truck chased us down and asked us “What was we doing on they land?” We explained we were looking for our AirBnB and he seemed like that happened all the time. We turned around and were faced by two Robert E Lee looking dudes stroking their beards in front of not less than five giant confederate flags arranged in some type of bizarre Confederate-themed outdoor garden plaza. They proceeded to grill us as well and I flashed back to the gimp scene in Pulp Fiction. Did some fancy good ol’ boy talking and got the fuck out of there before they saw our arts license plate. Slept with a knife beside the bed once we finally got to our cabin (which was totally amazing by the way, more on that below). As we were leaving town, Casey snapped this pic while I yelled “Bye-bye, you racist motherfuckers!”
We couldn’t quite make it to the Upper Peninsula with the pets in tow and the long border crossing, so we ended up staying in no-man’s-land (and I mean no-brown-man’s-land) middle of Michigan. The area was stunningly beautiful, though, and our cabin was a real gem. We hadn’t been there 10 minutes before I caught a trout in the river running right in front of the cabin. Just full of fish. Definitely caught the fishing pox the area warned about. Might still have ’em.
We took a day trip into Traverse City and learned where all the white people in middle America go in the summer. It was 65 degrees and rainy and they were running around in swimsuits and cutoffs like they were in Destin. We were huddling in our sweaters. I’m glad these people have something to do up here, though. No wonder the North won the war. They’re tougher than we are. Loved our place, though. I do love going to the bathroom in an outhouse.
The drive the next day to Eagle River, WI was pretty spectacular. We were on a state route the whole way that pretty much hugged the curve of the great lake the whole way, I guess the UP’s version of Highway 1. Kind of fascinating that there’s a third coast up here. Really gorgeous scenery. There were tons of old motels along the highway. We fantasized about buying one and never leaving. But then again, if we could weather the winters up here, we’d just move to Montréal, right?
summartime.blog 