The US border and southwest to Williston, ND - Sep 5, 2007 - Williston, North Dakota, United States

Today's journey started with a trip to Speedy Auto Glass. In one hour, they fixed a couple of stone chips in the windshield of the bus, and provided some good highway information for us. Apparently, highway 35 south from Weyburn to the US border is not in good shape, and they recommended carrying on down highway 39 to Estevan and the North Portal border crossing into North Dakota.

We ran into a bit of rain around the border, and it was with much trepidation that we attempted our first crossing with the motor home, toad and dogs. We had read as much as we could on the do's and don'ts of crossing the border, and had reduced the meat, fruits, veggies and dog food to minimums (or less). When we approached the American side, they first asked for our identification; I think having passports rather than drivers licenses helped in this. They then wanted to inspect the inside of the motor home. We got out and while two border patrol staff went over the inside, another asked me to open all the compartments on the right side of the bus, while a fourth interviewed Elaine and the dogs. We were not asked for the dogs health certificates, but had left them out, so they may have looked at them when they did the interior inspection. They did check the dog food, and if it had beef byproducts, it would have been destroyed. However, the main meat ingredient is chicken, so all is good and C&T get to have supper tonight.

One odd thing was that they never asked to see the left side compartments, nor did they want to extend the slides to look in the cupboards that cannot be opened when the slides are closed. We were then asked to re-board and we drove slowly forward through the scanner. This even picked up that one of the dogs was at my feet! Anyhow, with a last "down the road" instruction, the border guard bid us adieu and off we went.

This is the first time that the bus has been in a foreign country! The highways are better than the highways in Saskatchewan and we arrive in Williston North Dakota about 3pm. The campground is on the open prairie (hence the name Prairie Acres I suppose) and has scrub grass and no trees (well, just the two in the sunset picture). We will only be staying one night, and will head off to Miles City tomorrow.

Email contained a surprise from the realtor in Oliver since we thought that everything was under control. We will have to get to a FAX machine tomorrow to make sure the deal continues to evolve.

Elaine decided that she had had enough cooking and we went into downtown Williston for groceries and dinner (pizza!). On the way back, we took a few pictures, an old railroad locomotive, the bluffs overlooking the town and a nice sunset.