So I finally made it to Niagara, nice leisurely drive from Ohio with lots of nice scenery. Now when I got to the Niagara area I did not have a hotel yet, I just decided to drive around and find one when I got there. Not a bad idea since I was playing this whole trip by ear. And I certainly saw plenty of hotels with their Vacancy signs lit. But it was still pretty early so I decided to go ahead and drive over the Canadian border and check out the hotels there…thats when the poop hit the fan and I turned into Tom Hanks.

I pulled up to the Canadian guard on the Rainbow Bridge with my car in complete disarray. While I had been waiting in line I discovered that my drivers license was not in my wallet…well where the hell was it??! I couldn’t remember the last time I had used it even, it is just not something I take out that often. Well the nice little Canadian guard (cute girl) said to pull through to the left and re-enter the USA. I was still ripping apart all my baggage while I was pulling around to head back home….then more poop!

When I pulled into line to re-enter the USA I realized that they would also asked me for an ID. I didn’t get to worried since I figured the girl had just called ahead to tell them I was being sent back through. Well Bubba didn’t have a clue when I pulled up! (I find it quite amusing that all the guards in Canada were these 20 something cute girls/guys and our guards looked like they should be bouncing people out of a seedy bar in downtown NYC!)

So the guard puts me through the paces and finally tells me to go park my car and go up to customs. This is where I get to somehow prove my citizenship before I can return to my country. Well I have to say this for our customs people…they have very poor tools to work with. I see no reason why they should not have full access to the same drivers license databases that the police have. But they don’t…instead they kept asking me where I was from and where my picture ID was. I gave them my whole history and finally I guess the guard got tired of talking to me cause he just had this give up look on his face and let me go, 2 hours later (thus the Tom Hanks reference from the movie Terminal).

Driving away I was very upset with myself for somehow loosing my license but I was physically exhausted and just wanted to visit the falls and get a hotel. OH…yeah…more pooop!

Hotels don’t let you get a room without picture id anymore…even when paying with cash. I checked a couple of hotels (different price levels) and finally gave up…so frustrated and it was dark by that time. And so I just decided to drive back home (not to fast, no license)…so that made up my 23 hour day.

Blame Canada!