A Bump In The Road.

Well, as you've probably guessed by now, Houston we have a problem.  Due to a paperwork issue we got turned away at the border to Canada on Thursday.  Who gets denied entry to Canada???  Anyway, what else could we do but return to the nearest town, which happens to be Minot, ND.  ....What, you've never heard of it?  I'm shocked.

It's not that terrible of a place to be stuck, I guess... I mean, it's better than Baghdad.  Or Ebola-land.  And they do have a Starbucks (two, actually).

But as you can imagine, lovely as it is, we would rather NOT be in Minot, ND.  So what to do?  If we tried crossing the border again we'd probably get thrown in jail (who knew those Canadians were so strict??).  Sucks that you can't get from one US state to another without Canada having to cooperate.

Two options: stay here to sort out the problem then continue on our way as planned, or head west to Seattle, ship the truck and trailer on a barge, and ship ourselves and the dogs on a plane.  Not only would option 2 be way more expensive, but I am well known to be strongly against putting my dogs on planes.  There's just too much that could go wrong.  But for option 1, how long would that take?  Days, ok.  Weeks/months, notsomuch.

After doing some research, it looks like we may be able to cross the border and be on our way in about a week.  This means ANOTHER week before I finally get to my job and we finally get to our house.  Oh yeah and now we'll probably miss the closing for the house.  Should we try to delay it?  Or have our realtor do the walkthrough and close the deal remotely?  Neither option seems great.  We're still undecided on this, so any input is appreciated.

And a HUGE shoutout to my supervisor and manager at work who have been extremely supportive throughout this relocation ordeal.  I'm really excited about this job, especially after what I'd been dealing with in my last one, and now I'm even more motivated to do GREAT work to make up for all this mess.  I know it's not really my fault, but still.  Any team that cares this much about someone they barely know yet is the kind of team I want to be on.

Another shoutout to the Select Inn of Minot, ND.  Not a fancy hotel by any means, but they've been kind enough to pretend not to notice the four dogs we have in our room.

 

The picturesque Select Inn, as viewed from the trailer park across the street.

And this is NOT what breakfast looks like.

Hopefully tomorrow there will be some progress to report.  I'm a little offended that Canada apparently has such a problem with us!