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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ihuxn!gadfly
From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.cycle
Subject: Re: x-country travel
Message-ID: <1248@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 13:26:01 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1248
Posted: Wed Nov  6 13:26:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 06:13:59 EST
References: <1209@decwrl.UUCP> <1085@mtuxo.UUCP> <857@ihlpa.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 33

--
> Generally, the people you meet when traveling across the country
> are pleasant and helpful.  There is one consistent exception, and
> you apparently are going to hit it.  That is U. S. Customs, upon
> returning from Canada.  Customs people seem to be surly and obnoxious
> pretty much all the time, but go out of their way to annoy people
> traveling on two wheels.  This summer, for instance, before we even
> came to a full stop at the border, the customs agent was filling out
> the paperwork for a complete vehicle search.  We wound up wasting about
> an hour in beautiful Buffalo before being allowed to re-enter the
> Land of the Free (feeling not all that free at the time)... 
> 
> 	Dan Star

I had the same experience, repeatedly, in Detroit.  Both the bridge
and the tunnel.  Once I figured I could avoid it by going further
north and taking the ferry across to Sarnia.  Boy was that a mistake--
it's not that popular a route, so the customs folks had all the
time in the world.  That was the first time anyone in the US ever made
me prove I was a US citizen.  I got so mad I kept hoping they'd
reject my proof (a voter registration, which is supposed to be as
valid for that purpose as a passport) so I could go back into Canada
as a political refugee.  That was in 1972, by the way.  I have
since ('76, '80, '82) taken the tunnel and taken my licks.  I travel
light, so it doesn't take more than 15 min. for them to search my
pack and gear.  When they get around to it.
-- 
                    *** ***
JE MAINTIENDRAI   ***** *****
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