Day 11 - 7/26/2004 - How NOT to get a cavity search at the border...

Many of you reading this page were privy to how Hunter and I decided to protect our gear during the trip.  For those not aquainted with our "genius" idea, I will attempt to set the stage...

In this age of fear, it seemed a great idea to label our food bins with very visible "BIOHAZARD" stickers.  We figured this would cause any would be thief to think twice before attempting to walk off with out stuff.  Since we might be parked at some desolate areas,  this seemed like a GREAT idea.  Just to add a further sense of realism, we also printed up a "BIOHAZARD COLLECTION TEAM PARKING PERMIT".  All of these items are depicted below.  Let me take this opportunity to state for the record, that we never actually had any biohazard material  at all (it was just for fun folks).

So everything is fine, until we are getting ready to come back into the states, and Hunter innocently says, "Do you think that the bins that say 'BIOHAZARD' will cause any problem?"  I can just visualize that border crossing..."No officer, nothing to declare except some BIOHAZARD material."  So we pull off the road a couple of miles before the border and shuffle everything in the back to ensure they are fully covered, and start back toward the border.  As we approached the guard, Hunter was getting nervous.  "What if they start looking through our stuff", he asks.  "Well let's hope that doesn't happen", I said as I though of the hours/days we would spend explaining this one.  I only knew in this environment of increased security, that no cavity is safe.  This was also not the time to try on my latest Rajhid imitation.

"Hello there", the guard said.  I waited just a second to make sure Hunter didn't say "Those really aren't Biohazards in the back" (you have to know Hunter...)  "We're doing well", I responded.  We had some idle talk about Highpointing and the need for insect spray.  He stepped toward the van to look in, as I dreaded the question, "Could you please step out".  Instead, he said "Have a nice day", and flagged us on.  That was one LONG discussion.

So the rest of the trip was uneventful.  Northern Michigan is even "morerer" of the same than Canada, but with less of a view.  We drove up through Marquette, and found a nice little state park ("Van Ripper").  It's 10:30 at night and the last rays of the sun are just disappearing - we are in the extreme western portion of the Eastern time zone.  

Mt. Arvon, and possibly Timm's Hill tomorrow.