The Long Road South

Well, Adventurers, it's been quite a while since our last adventure post but that's only because we have just been on one our most incredible adventures to date!

It all started a year and a half ago when both Tatterhood and I felt inspired to finally act on our impressions to move south to the USA. Tatterhood is originally from the states, she having moved to Canada after we got married. The fact she was still an American citizen we thought would make it relatively easy to move down there. However the red taped hurtles and forests of paperwork kept us busy.

On our family reunion road trip to northern Michigan (which is worthy of a more in depth post later), we received confirmation that I qualified for immigration but more paperwork was needed. After submitting these and more papers later on, the wait game was on. It was around this time that we learned that in order to complete with my immigration process I would need to go west to Surrey, British Columbia for a medical and then east to Montreal, Quebec for an interview; all in the space of three weeks. Though inconvenient, we decided to make these two trips something of a vacation. I will be doing a few posts later about trips. 

Upon returning home from Montreal and after submitting even more documents to immigration, we began the long process of packing up our house. If you ever wanted to know how much stuff you have accumulated over ten years, try moving. You will find out fast how quickly your worldly possessions will fill up a large storage unit. 

On October 21st, the next leg of our journey began. With much help from dear friends and family, we started to load up the giant Uhaul truck. I couldn't believe we were able to fit everything in, even a pool table which we were originally going to leave behind (though I questioned this decision later when we had to offload the dang thing). It was a long day and a late night, but it was all complete. The next day we said goodbye to our little home which we have had since we got married and set out on the road south unsure of what to expect.

Our goal for the first day was the Canada-US Border. We figured if we crossed later in the night it would be less traffic and hassle. I drove the giant Uhaul truck which I nicknamed 'PutPut' while Tatterhood and her mom drove Obsidian with a little Uhaul trailer towed behind. It took quite some time to get used to driving such a large vehicle and now that it was loaded with our stuff, it seemed to crawl down the highway and lurch with its top heavy load around every curve in the road. Only once did I think that I might flip old PutPut. It was near Lethbridge, Alberta when I was going around a sharp curve. I could feel the truck shift and tip towards doom. Fortunately, no one was in the passing lane so I was able to take the turn as wide as possible even using the soft shoulder of the road. Disaster was averted and from then on I decided that I needed to slow way under the speed limit before taking anymore curves.

We wound up crossing the border not only once on the trip down but rather three times. The first time we were 'escorted' back to Canada because we needed a paper for our truck Obsidian saying it met all the emission standards. Without that we couldn't import the truck. Let me stop here and just point out that the border personnel were very kind and tried to help us in every way possible. The next day we obtained the required paperwork from Toyota and went through the border again. This time we got through without any issues, except they forgot to take the emissions letter from us. This worried me because I wanted everything to be done correctly and I didn't want to drive all the way to Utah only to find out I have to go all the way back to the border to properly import the truck. So once again we returned to Canada, made a u-turn and returned to the border crossing. This time they sent us inside to do the paperwork with the same nice border guard we had dealt with the night before. It was a miracle because he knew everything we needed to do and he helped us with it all. Like they say, third time is a charm.

With the border taken care of, we were free and clear to continue south to our new home in Utah. It has been a crazy adventure to this point, but it marks a new beginning for us and our continuing quest to enjoy life and the great outdoors. Stay tuned for more.

~Torran