What a weekend to put some miles on the Harley Davidson! I decided to head to western New York to see my dad and some friends. The start of my journey was, let’s say, perplexing and very frustrating.
This story is about the experience I had at the border of Detroit and Windsor. Now, I’ve crossed the border many times. If I had to guess, I’ll beat I’ve made that trip 75-100 times in the past 28 years, maybe more. It’s always been pretty uneventful as far as the border patrol and crossing goes.
Well, that changed over the weekend. For some reason there’s been huge backups going into Canada, and I got caught in one the other day. I should mention here that it was warm, lowers 80 or so with no breeze. As I was waiting to get to customs on my motorcycle (of which I haven’t crossed with since 2019) I decided to get off my Harley and push it forward as I inched towards the agent, as I was sweating all over it. Minute by minute, getting closer to freedom of the open road in Windsor. About 45 minutes into this slog, which found me about 6 or 7 cars from the booth, I see two Canadian border agents walking my way. I thought, there must be something going on behind me. No problem, I’ll just stand next to my bike, as I had been doing for almost an hour. That’s when the female officer spoke up. “Excuse me, sir.”. Now I realized they were coming to talk to me. “Yes?” I responded. She replied, fairly timidly with her male counterpart next to her “Is there a reason why you’re standing next to your motorcycle?” My first thought was, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? THIS IS WHY YOU’RE HOLDING US UP??? But I kept my cool and told them that it was hot and that’s the reason I was standing next to it. Keep in mind, for 45 minutes or so, I had not left my bike, I hadn’t talked to anyone around me, nothing. I just pushed my bike a car length at a time as I got closer.
I was PISSED. Why would they ask my such a stupid question, and not only hold me up, but hold up two lines of people trying to just cross the border? It was insane. As soon as I gave them my answer for their ridiculous question, they both just turned around and went back to their respective boothes. Their body language almost seemed like they knew what a dumb question it was.
This waste of time was completely unnecessary. How do I know this? First off, I have a thing called ‘common sense’. But beyond that, I asked a few friends who’ve worked at, or are still working border patrol. Of course, my Canadian friends – the best people in the world – apologized for my bad experience…which wasn’t necessary. They’re all retired and had nothing to do with it anyways. Not one of my friends could explain this total waste of time and gave me no reason for it. I’ll just say there was a few laughs as I told this story.
I could write about how moments later I lost my nighttime glasses as they flew out of their holder and onto the road. Or that the 401 went into one lane and backed up for miles, to which I rode the shoulder and then hoped off, but I won’t. Riding through Canada is always an enjoyable ride for a guy like me who doesn’t like to stop.
Here’s a few pictures of my trip. Oh, and Thank You to the border patrol agents who employ common sense in your daily duties.
-Meltdown-
