This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

The Fun-Filled Shenanigans of U.S. Customs Officers

Posted by ehren

With a mile to go to the border, things started to get really exciting in a way that will be really hilarious to look back on in about 500 years. Miro went back into the cabin to retrieve our passports, and in the process twisted the key off in the lock on the filing cabinet where he keeps his important documents. His green card and driver's license were in his wallet, though, so after a set of confusing hand signals from a border agent (Wanda), we started in and handed our ID to the booth agent (Dave). They asked us if we had any meats, fruits, vegetables, contraband, weapons, more than $10,000, etc, anything to declare, and we thought no and said no. They explained that we would be inspected and that we should pull foreward and turn off the engine. Fine, no problem.

Miro and I sat in the shade next to the HQ and watched as Wanda and another agent went through the bus, thoroughly. At one point one of them shouted out:

"Hey, we found your severed arm."
"Haha, you did? Sorry about that."
"Yeah, didn't you hear her shriek?"

(In case you didn't read the Portland entry, we went to a Chuck Palahniuk book reading and he threw out rubber/fake severed arms to the audience and we caught one, one handed. ba-dum)

They asked us to open up the trunk and we obliged, and they told us we could go sit inside if we wanted in the A/C. We did, and set about reading all the brochures from the rack, about topics ranging from tariffs to duty-free shops to the nuanced calculus of bringing at most 1,000 cigarettes back from the U.S. virgin islands (at least 800 of them must be from the US Virgin Islands, 200 can be from elsewhere). There were some delightful little nuggets of wisdom in them. Did you know that there's a quota on importing brooms?

Then agent No. 2 came in looking stern.

No. 2: "I bet you boys were wondering why we didn't pull it into one of the bays to really tear it apart."
Me: (nonplussed)
No. 2: "Well, we found this and you'd better be damn sure there isn't any more of it."

He was holding a 5lb package of frozen ground chuck. Apparently Miro bought it in Jasper and forgot it was in the freezer. I stammered through a "Oh jeez, didn't know that was in there, where's it from?" half explanation and before we knew it they had our keys and 10 agents in the bus, tearing the place apart. Procedure is procedure, after all. They spent about two hours working it over, and at one point came in to ask about the locked filing cabinet.

"Well, see, that's a funny story 'cause as we were pulling up...etc"
"Haha, I see. Well, maybe we can help you out with that."

He came back in later to say they had gotten the key out, such as it was, but would need to drill out the lock to have a look-see inside the filing cabinet. Turns out their battery powered Dewalt couldn't do the trick, so I volunteered our almost-brand-new hammerdrill, and rather than try and explain where all the pieces were I was brought out to the bus -- still full of border agents -- where I drilled out the lock for them while they were joking around with the severed arm. Surreal.

Despite all that we came away with a solidly positive impression of the border guard. They explained everything clearly, did what they had to do, and were thorough and professional. Despite a few friendly and joking conversations ("So...I'm required by law to give you guys comment cards to fill out. I know your experience today hasn't been entirely positive, but I'm required.") I still had the sense that with one wrong move I'd be thrown to the pavement and cuffed.

After much unpleasantness -- and I really am skipping over quite a bit here -- we payed a $100 fine for the meat and rolled on down to Eureka, MT. We sat in a gas station parking lot in the shadow of the bus for a while to decompress and call a bunch of people on the cheaper US rates, and then moved the bus to a restaurant parking lot across the street for the night, for free, as long as we came in to patronize the establishment.

I went for a half run half walk along some truly gorgeous hillsides (to an abrupt dead-end at the wood pellet plant) in the settling sun and Miro went for a bike ride. We had one "Moose Drool" porter each and then I wrote up the last few days and now I'm going to bed. Just another day.

In the morning my curtains were blown all over the place from the high nighttime winds coming down from the mountain range, and the sun came up nice and early, so I was awake by 8:30 or so. Miro spent about two hours on the phone taking care of various lingering complications with our border crossing (ees a Canuck), and I worked and read and looked at maps. Later in the morning we drove into Eureka for gas ($2.29/gal has never seemed so cheap) and a bank visit.

We took a fairly substantial detour down MT 37 to Libby, the county seat. Not a mile out of Eureka a gravel truck going the other way tossed about 100 rocks into our windshield and front end. It happened fast and sounded like firecrackers so I flinched but didn't drive off the road. One of the rocks put a two-inch diameter spiderweb of cracks in the driver's pane, so now both main windshield pieces have cracks and will eventually need to be replaced. Thanks, Eureka Gravel & Paving Co. The road followed the long edge of Lake Koocanusa (made up Indian name: Kootenay + Canada + USA), formed by the Libby dam and hydroelectric facility. Nice drive, sunny, hot, lots of pine trees. In town I headed to the library, but they only offered web browsers on their own computers, and had most of the useful ports turned off via firewall, so spent 45 minutes noodling around.

We got a Montana-sized lunch at a local diner, and hit the road to Kalispell on US 2; The very same US 2 that wanders all the way across to upstate NY, over the Berkshires, and Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge [Ed. Note: Wrong...that's MA 2.. but it still goes a long, long way].