Oh Canada, Oh Canada!

Thursday, June 28.  Our appointment to have the windshield replaced was at 1 PM, we arrived about 20 minutes early and they were ready for us.  The Safelite shop does not have a lot of parking area so I had to pull up to the shop door by driving through the used car lot next to the Safelite shop.  The used car lot manager knew we were coming so they had moved several of their cars out of the way to give us a clear shot to the Safelite shop door.  We locked the cats in the bedroom of the motor home and stuffed pillows under the door to keep them from escaping and then we walked over to Wendy's for lunch.  It was a beautiful day to sit outside and eat lunch with Jenny.  The temperature was probably low 70's, slight breeze and lots of sunshine.  We walked back to the Safelite shop about 1:45 and they were just cleaning the newly installed windshield!  The manager did not want us to move the RV for about an hour so the glue could set.  I told him we would be inside taking a nap and he laughed.  I wasn't kidding!  We napped for about 30 minutes then got up and prepared to leave for Canada.  I backed the RV out the same way I came in, the lady from the used car lot guided me from the front and Mike guided me onto the side street from the back.  We did not attempt to connect the car, instead we drove separately until we got to Hwy. 93 and then pulled over to connect.

After we connected we checked to make sure the lights were working and noticed the left turn signal light on the RV was not working...CRAP!  Let me preface the rest of the story by saying we have been stressing ourselves for almost two weeks about driving into Canada with the motor home.  We've gotten conflicting information on what we need to get the animals (1 dog and 2 cats) through and could not find anything definitive on any website.  We knew we couldn't take a gun so had left our pistol with friends in Nevada, we heard we couldn't take fruit in and would be limited on how much alcohol and so on.  I took the last of our cherries to Rene's mom that morning but kept 2 bananas and 1 orange because I heard that the border police didn't care about citrus or bananas.  We were down to 8 bottles of wine had learned we could just pay the tariff if they said we were over our limit.  And now we had a tail light not working and all I could think of was they were not going to let us in to Canada because our rig was faulty!  AAIIIEEEEE!!!!

After a few calming breaths Mike looked up where auto parts stores were on our route to the border crossing at Roosville, Canada just north of Eureka, Montana.  We knew we were going to stop for fuel in Eureka to top off the tank and because diesel was $3.69 a gallon when we drove up the other day.  So off we went!  The gas station in Eureka was busy when we arrived so I pulled over to the side and Mike went over to the station and was ready to block anyone from getting to the pump I needed.  There were two vehicles at the pumps I needed to access, one was ready to leave but was blocked by the other one in front of him.  After what seemed like forever they left and I pulled over to get fuel.  Good news is the price of diesel had dropped to $3.59!  We left the gas station and drove through town to look for an auto parts store to buy a new bulb for the tail light.  There was one on the right side just as we were leaving town so I had plenty of room to pull over on the side of the road.  I bought two bulbs, one as a spare, and replaced the burnt out bulb and we were back on the road in less than 15 minutes!  It was like an Indy 500 pit stop!

By this time it was 4:30, we knew the port of entry was open 24 hours and we knew the Provincial park we were staying in that night had lots of spaces available so that pressure was off.  When we pulled up to the port of entry the line coming into the states was backed up several blocks while there was no one in line to go into Canada!  We pulled up to the drive through window, that's what it looked like anyway, and the border guard stuck his head out and said, "welcome to Canada." He took our passports, asked us where we were from, where we were going, how long we planned on being in Canada and were we caring any firearms or weapons.  That's all he asked!  Here I had the RV and car registration and insurance papers and all of the vaccination records for the animals.  He gave us back our passports and told us, "have a great time in Canada!"  What??  That was it!?!  Really??  All that worrying for nothing!  Oh, well, now we can at least continue to worry about getting back into the states.  That should be fun...

Now we are in Canada!  The drive from the border up to the Provincial Park (their version of a state park) was beautiful, the road was kind of rough but the scenery was like a post card.

Jenny helped with the navigation as best she could but got tired of looking at the map...

We found the turn off for the park and headed to what we thought was the entrance.  Our GPS does not have Canadian maps loaded so we were using the map app on the iPhone.  It took us down a winding one lane dusty road that ended at a private residence.  Crap!  We disconnected the car and I did a 12 point turn to get the motor home turned around and drive out to the main road.  We came to another intersection and it looked like the park entrance was to our left.  Mike drove the car over there and then came back and said that was it.  Yay!  The site was $35 for the night and only had electric but that was ok, by this time we were ready for a glass (or 2 or 3!) of wine.

It only took a few minutes to get parked and set up at the site.  Someone walking by said we sure could set up quickly.  Yep, done it a few times.  Once the dish was up I was happy!

It was a beautiful park and our site was in an area adjacent to a lake.  Here are some pics of the area.

While at the park Mike made a new friend with a caterpillar crawling on the railing between the sites.

So there you have it, our crossing saga was almost a bust.  Now it's off to Donald, B.C. and to Campers  Haven RV Park for 4 nights.  I'll let you know how that goes...