Entering America
I kind of sensed trouble, but didn’t know how difficult they would make it for me in the end. To prepare myself I decided to renew my car insurance and clean it as good as possible. I told the guy at the auto mobile office that I needed the insurance now as I wasn’t sure if I was still able to afford it in a month from now. He didn’t care and happily accepted the 550 CAD for the next 3 months. For the big clean I went to one of those self- service wash points and spent a good 25 dollars on the vacuum, trying to find and get rid of every last weed crumb in the interior, but I also high pressure cleaned the exterior. Once the car sparkled it was time to get back to the hostel and I showered, shaved and deodorized myself just before I headed to the Canadian-American boarder.
The boarder station turned out to be quite big even though the road that let to it was tiny and there was no other traffic crossing at the time, just me. It might have been a good thing but in my case it wasn’t, the boarder agents had a lot of time on their hands. As you are supposed to I stopped on the side of the station, rolled down my window and handed my passport to the officer. My first impression wasn’t so bad, but he quickly turned out to be of the mean kind, shaved head, Oakleys, moustache should’ve given it away right from the start. The man was not friendly at all, playing the bad cop, fortunately he was in a lower level position. I still thought everything worked kind of ok but I immediately failed to answer the first three questions correctly and in retrospect I should’ve prepared myself better. Where are you going? “Ahm Yellowstone” for how long “Hmm 3 weeks” where are you staying? “Hmmm at the camp ground?” That seemed to raise all the red flags at once and he made me step out of the vehicle and visit the immigration office. Here I got to talk to a bunch of higher ranked officers, they had more questions which I wasn’t answering to their satisfaction either. I had to wait for a long time and after a while I got to talk to a person who seemed to be the officer in chief and he was playing the good cop. He was friendly, seemed more educated and approachable than the others but still wasn’t a fan of my situation, sleeping in the car, without a place to stay and no real plans. I agree, it must’ve been wired, German guy, kind of a hobo, Canadian vehicle, trying to enter America. I thought things were going better with this guy, but in the end he denied me entry to the United States.
My good friend Edward, Kalispel, USA
This pretty guy might be my favourite car of all time. We tarveled all across The United States together, always running, never complaining. Beautiful portrait in front of some fog covered hills on our first morning in America.
I had to return to the Canadian boarder office, get my status in Canada verified and go back to try a second time. It was a whole different world on the Canadian side, super relaxed and the boarder agents were just as friendly as Canadians can be.
They helped me with the paperwork and even made jokes about the Americans being dicks all the time. Now back to the US-side and even with the papers in my possession, I wasn’t sure if I was able to cross the boarder any more. The first announcement after handing over the form was a strip search of the car, done without my presence, I had to step inside the office again. I was happy that I had given the car a good clean, but a little worried about my home-made brake line cut being discovered. It took them a good half hour and all they complained about was my drone in the end. I had to talk to the good cop again, tell my story once more, or make one up on the go that sounded reasonable enough but didn’t reveal too much of my real situation. l lied about being on a year sabbatical (I couldn’t tell him that I was planning to work on my laptop in public libraries) I told him about my plans to meet my friend at the Yellowstone National park to go camping for a couple of weeks and then eventually get back to Canada. There wasn’t really another plan at the time, the idea to drive across the country developed later with the discovery of a route connecting all the American national parks. Still, he wasn’t convinced, so I added driving all the way to Mexico to the story which for some reason made him change his mind. He thought I was telling the real plan now. In retrospect I can kind of understand him being so sceptical, I was a man living in his car and they have already a lot of people in this situation in the United States. Now that he thought he knew what I was up to it all came down to funds. Luckily I had a screenshot of my bank account (no internet at the office) on my phone when it was sky high a couple of months earlier and that’s what did it, whoops, all problems solved. Money doesn’t make you happy but life easier. I still had to go through the paperwork side of the immigration process but that turned out to be a piece of cake in comparison. Another thing the boarder agent seemed really eager about was to under no circumstances leave the car in the US. What if it breaks I thought to myself? I concluded I’ll just set it on fire and play dumb and be very sorry. Photos, fingerprints and finally the stamp in my passport. I thanked the good cop and he wished me well for my journey. If it wasn’t for him I would’ve never crossed the boarder at this particular spot. The song “Boarder Patrol” by Eek a Mouse always comes to my mind when I think about this experience.
Corn fields I, Somewhere around Flathead lake, USA
After I stayed in the mountains for so long it was nice to see blue sky’s and yellow cornfields again. This viewpoints was all covered in signs warning of the danger of Rattlesnakes. I didn’t see nor hear any though.
Corn fields II, Somewhere around Flathead lake, USA
It felt a bit different taking photos in other locations than just the National Parks. People were friendly but didn’t really understand what I was doing out there in their front yard. The Canadian plates of the car didn’t help to avoid wired looks.
It was time for a treat after all this, the first thing I craved in the US was a cliche greasy American cheeseburger with fries and a big glass of Coke. I found a tiny diner in the first village across the boarder and when I finally got to eat my hands were still shaking from the experience.
I was a bit clueless about what to do now, there was still some time to fill before I could meet Dustin in Yellowstone. After driving into Glacier NP and realizing that the best bits were closed due to the early winter conditions, I rolled around Flathead lake passing through Kalispell, Whitefish and Lakeside and ended up in Missoula, Montana. Work decided it was time for another pit stop and after I slept at the Walmart parking lot for the first night I booked a hostel for the next 3 nights, because it came in heavy. The 3 nights weren’t enough for the workload, but it was the only hostel in town and due to a Mountain bike competition the next few days were completely booked. I had to change my rhythm back to sleeping in side streets and went to work at the down town library. It was pretty cold outside, hitting zero degrees Celsius at night. Once I was done with work I wanted to send a hard-drive home to Germany for backup, which took me another day and a half hanging out in a cafe eating cinnamon d drinking coffee. I had to copy everything twice as I had formatted the wrong disk, thankfully I had double backups.
It was an odd experience staying in Missoula, I hadn’t felt like such an alien in a long time, maybe never in the western hemisphere. I hadn’t stayed in a city for a while, or because back mountain red neck Americans are just a bit wired, it just felt odd being there. A couple of young guys at the hostel explicitly told me they hated Canadians, which I couldn’t understand a bit, but it seemed to be the mood around there and me driving around with my Canadian plated car didn’t help.
Little shed, somewhere in Montana , USA
I learned from the famous Instagram photographers that it is always nice to have a shed in the foreground of your pictures, unless you can find a friend that is willing to trade the job with the shed. They call it cabin, more romantic.
