California Bound: Day One

(Friday, December 29, 2006)
California Bound will be the story of my drive out to California with my Dad. Overall the trip was great and we saw a lot of interesting things. Day One however was not as smooth as I would have hoped.

The first day was to be the drive from London to Dayton Ohio. About a 5-6 hour drive including crossing the border as a tourist. However, since I'm going to be working I needed to get TN-Status at the border. I knew from friends this would take at least a hour at the border, longer if there were any problems.

We left London shortly after 9am, for the border crossing at Sarnia-Port Huron. I chose this crossing because it's closer to London then the Windsor crossing and the border is not as confusing as the US side in Detroit.

We arrived in Sarnia and I suggested we go to the bathroom before crossing the border. We might be standing in line for a while. So we stopped at the Tourist Information Booth on the Canadian side. A beautiful new building, with this giant statue of Canada Geese landing in a pond out front. I wish I took a picture, but I wasn't in tourist mode yet.

We used the washrooms and said hi to the lady on the desk. Told her we were off to California.

We got back on the road and drove up to the border. There was a 15-20 minute line of cars. We got up to the booth. I told the guard I needed to apply for NT-status. He gave me a little slip of paper and directed me where to go. I parked the car and we walked in to the building. When we got in line, I was second in line. It still took about 10 minutes before it was my turn. But they had a lot of booths open. At this point things were looking good.

When it was my turn I walked up to the booth and told the guy that I was applying for TN-status. He started into the rapid fire questions. The kind they use to try and trip up someone that's trying to be deceptive. I always feel I suck at this kind of questioning. In fact I suspect I would suck if I was trying to be deceptive. Since I never am, I do fine.

Eventually he asked to see my paper work so I got it out and presented it to him.

This is where things went down hill fast. He was happy to see my degree, but he was very unhappy with the job offer letter I had. I remained calm the entire time, and answered his questions as best I could. I think because of this he was very nice and polite and helpful, but when all was said and done, he couldn't let me in based on the letter I had.

problems. My I was concerned the letter was insufficient when I received it. I knew it had several potentialconcerns were validated when he pointed out each item I thought might be a problem, was a problem. And a significant one, from all my reading, I didn't even know. So he pulled out a sheet of paper with a check list of about 6 items on it. Each item had an explanation of a requirement for the letter. He check off 4 of the 6 as being deficient in my letter.

So what could have been a quick crossing was just starting to get very complicated. At this point the process had taken over an hour, and the only thing we could do now was go back across the border. He gave me a coupon for the toll to get back across, and a letter for Canada Customs and Immigration. He also told me I could try again as soon as I got a better employment letter. If I could get it faxed to me back in Sarnia, I could come back as soon as I got it.

My Dad and I thought it would really suck to have to head back to London. I had my Cell Phone with me. My Dad had his calling card. We started thinking about places we could go where we could call the Professer at UCI and received a fax of a new letter. Just in case she could turn it around in a few hours.

My Dad suggested we try the Tourist Information, so we went there to see if they could do any thing for us. First we called home and got the Fax number for a neighbour in case we had to head home. My Dad talked to lady at the information desk. She was very nice and said she could receive a Fax or an email for us. This was an awesome thing for her to do.

I called the Professor at the University I was going to work for and explained what happen. I then explained what was wrong with the letter. I also told her we had a local fax number and email address she could send a new letter to. She took down the details and said she'd call me back when a new letter was ready. This was great news. If we could get it in a few hours it would save so much effort.

Well she called me back on the cell about 20 minutes later ready with the new letter. She wanted to read it back to me to make sure it covered all the necessary points. We got through the letter and it sounded fine to me. At this point I hear her say hi to her 13 month old daughter. She was at home and her daughter had walked into her office. Then I here, oh, don't touch that! Then silence.

The daughter had hit the power button, on the computer. She said she'd have to call me back.

About 30 minutes or so later I get the call back. Turns out the computer wouldn't restart. It blue screened after being turned back on. So she had to get out her Mac Book, which she was still transferring over to, and rewrite the letter. However it was ready. We reviewed it, and it sounded good to me again. At this point it was easier for her to email it, because she was at home and didn't have a Fax machine handy.

So she sent the email to the lady at the Information Desk's account. It took about 10 minutes for it to come through. When it finally did, it didn't have the letter attachment. Oh great, what more could go wrong. I was thinking, what if the email server for this government office is stripping all attachments. This could really suck. I called the professor back and she checked to see if the attachment was on the letter that was sent. Turns out she had made an error and it didn't get attached. She sent it again, about 10 minutes later it came through.

The lady at the information desk was very kind and printed me of a few copies for me.

We were all set to try again.

We got in the car and headed for the border. We got over the bridge and the line was very short. We got up the booth and who was in the booth but the guy who had sent me back the first time. He didn't recognize me at first, they see a lot of people in a day. I reminded him. He then asked me a few questions about how I had gotten the new letter. He then asked to look at it. He looked it over and said much better, and sent me over to the office.

Well the car line was short this time, but the people line was about 50 feet outside the door. Thank goodness for the mild winter we were having up to that point.

my request, explained what had happened It took about an hour in line before I got to the front. They very generously started taking shorter cases from behind me in line, thus making my wait even longer. At one point a guard looked at my slip and said, "Oh, that's not short." and walked back further in line. When I finally got to the front of the line I saw a different officer. It was very crowed around the booths at this point, so she directed me behind the counter to another area of the office. She looked over my paper work, asked who had sent me away the first time. I explained I had seen him at the booth coming over, and he was satisfied with the new letter. She then took it to her superior. He looked it over and signed off on it. He look up at me and said, this is exactly what we are looking for.

It took another half an hour for all the work to be done. Most of it involved me just standing there at the counter, while the officer pecked away at her computer.

When it was all done and over with, she stapled this small unimpressive square bit of paper into my passport and sent me on my way.

I collected my Dad from the waiting area, we went to the car and drove on to Dayton. In the end it took about 5 hours to get across the border. We were running much later then planned, but decided we should push it to Dayton to get back on schedule.

Our first stop across the border was the Port Huron Tourist Information. I was now in the States all set to start a new adventure.

He stopped just south of Detroit for dinner. Then on to a Red Roof Inn just outside of Dayton for the night. A long day, but we were on our way.



This is the Tourist Information Center in Port Huron. Our first stop on the journey to California. The flags are at half staff for President Ford. This would end up being one of the themes of the trip. There are still places around here that have their flags at half staff.