First days cross country

So far things have been going well.  We headed up to Vancouver with the kids to meet my mother-in-law so she could  fly with them to Toronto.  Flying this way allowed us two advantages. First, we could get the kids through the border rather than her having to try to get through 3 kids with a different last name. It also allowed for a direct flight without plane changes. We normally fly Seattle to Buffalo, which are the airports closest to our homes, however there are no direct flights at this time from Seattle to Buffalo.  Flying Vancouver to Toronto offers a non-stop flight, but does require more driving on either end. 

We stopped in at U.S. Customs to export the car before heading over to Canadian customs to import the car.  We chose to import during this portion of our journey rather than at our eastern Canadian border crossing because the US customs office is only open 930am-330pm and closes at noon on Friday.  We do hope to get to the border on Friday, however, we didn’t want the additional pressure driving of trying to get there in time to do the exportation before the weekend (which will be a Canadian Holiday on Monday-Canada Day).  While we do have a “goal” for each day, safety is our first priority, so we are cognizant of making sure we aren’t overdriving. 

We’ve also been asked why we are driving through the US rather than Canada, especially since we started the journey driving to Vancouver.  The car is currently full (we still have full visibility in the back and easy access to the items we need during our journey) and we could never have fit three kids and my mother-in-law besides  all our stuff.    Also, driving north around the Great Lakes is about 8 hours driving that we avoid by going south.  Finally, gas prices are much less in the U.S.  So we started by taking the kids up to Vancouver, then drove back to my parents’ house where we’ve been staying the last 3 weeks to pick up the stuff, then 90.  We’ve chosen 90 over 94 to avoid Minneapolis and Madison for traffic reasons.

So back to customs.   To export the vehicle out of the  U.S. we had to e-mail ahead to get a worksheet form to fill out, then the title, original invoice and worksheet had to be scanned ande-mailed 72 hours in advance of our crossing (weekends aren’t included).  The directions the Blaine crossing sent us were very easy to understand and detailed, including an aerial photo of where to park the car.  I stayed with the kids in the car, Paul took our original documents into the U.S. customs office a short walk away and came back within 5-10 minutes with the title stamped exported.   The officer was in good spirits and asked a few cursory questions of Paul and joked a bit with him.

We then drove over to the Canadian border crossing.  We didn’t understand where to go and ended up in the truck lot instead of the car lot, but the agents were very kind and helped us get all sorted out and put in the right direction.  We told Canadian customs what we were doing-moving to Ontario, bringing the car over-and they took our documents. I was super organized which really helped, I think it helped project that even though we weren’t 100% sure what we were supposed to be doing, we were trying very hard to do things in a proper manner-I carry a binder with me that has clear plastic protectors.  Each protector has a section of paperwork necessary for our journey- there are sections for hotel reservations, car customs forms/documents, id documents, customs forms for our stuff, etc.

 

We waited about 1 hour  and then were told our paper  work was fine.  We paid about $1000 in GST  and $100 fee for having an air conditioner.  When we get to Ontario we will still have to pay $195 to register in the RIV program (Registrar of Imported Vehicles), provincial taxes and licensing fees, an inspection fee and possibly a fee to modify my running lights.  I think since we paid the a/c fee but they didn’t charge a green fee we probably don’t have to pay that.  If your vehicle is rated less than20mpg, you are charged in $1000 fee incriments depending on how bad the gas mileage is.  According to my car’s computer I get 20.1 around town… we have been getting 21-22mpg as we’ve been highway driving.  It is my understanding that it is still cheaper to import our vehicle rather than buying there.  We’ll also be paying twice as much for auto insurance (yes, I’ve comparison shopped)

Our first day driving we have fallen into a rhythm.  I fill a 20 ounce pop bottle with water from a gallon jug and have to pee every 1.5-2 hours.  2 hours is about how long we each can drive before getting irritable, stiff and have to pee.  The car (have I mentioned how much I friggin’ love my car?)  has a counter of how long the current trip has been going (besides our trusty GPS)  so we drive until it reaches 1 hour 30 minutes, then start looking for a rest stop or a gas station if the fuel  gauge is low (we get about 400-450 miles per full tank-the car computer even will tell you how many more miles you can go on your current amount of fuel-it’s amazing).  So far this is working great.  We drove about 12 hours our first day (I’m hoping it will be our longest, my plans for the next days are 10ish hours the total journey without traffic will be about 38 hours) with a short stop to load the car at my parents’ and when we got to the hotel just in time to get some dinner we remarked how we both feel like we’ve been driving all day, but not in a bad mood or overly tired.  We haven’t had any issues with nodding off or feeling like we will. So far, so good.

Driving with my husband as a driving partner is great for a few reasons… he really likes driving… he’d probably drive 8 hours at a time without complaining if I didn’t have to pee, AND lets me control the stereo and he drives just a touch faster than I do so we get a little further on his shift than min.  He’s pretty much the perfect driving partner and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather drive with.

I know it’s going smoothly partly because of my smart mother-in-law as well insisting to fly the kids back.  Don’t get me wrong, our kids are actually great travelers (well,not the greatest sleepers in hotel rooms, but actually traveling by car, air or train?  They are awesome).  In fact my father-in-law remarked that the kids must have done well, despite really only sleeping about 4-5 hours at the hotel  (see above)  the night before because when she got off the airplane with 3 kids in tow (and V’s first trip without strapping her into a 5 point harness car seat) she was actually smiling and not frazzled.  However, she’s right, the driving is much easier with just the  hubby and I.

Our first night we made it to Bozeman, MT a little further than I was expecting considering our detour to Vancouver and my not accounting for time changes in my travel calculations.  We stayed in a nice, expensive room thanks to my parent’s birthday gift to me of a travel voucher they’d earned with the hotel  chain.  We don’t have a hotel booked for tonight and may end up calling the ’rents when we are feeling close to being done driving for the day to see if they can book online for us since we downgraded to dumb phones to go with our US/Canada plan.