A Wombats Adventures: October 2012

Vegas 2012 ... Victoria 2012

How exciting... we are packed.. everything in place and ready to go to Vegas !!

We arrive at Victoria airport, board our plane and fly off to Calgary. Westjet is a great airline to fly with... quirky and friendly.

We find our bags and walk to the very other end of the Calgary airport.. find the USA entrance and wander in. What luck.. not a soul around, so we wander up to the border guard, Teddi goes thru no troubles.. then me.. the guard has some free time so he pokes about and then asks.. Have you ever been arrested. I think about that for a moment and say, Yes I have thank you. Then a few more questions and he calls another guard over. Ya! I am being asked to go to a small quiet room for questioning.. what fun!

So now Homeland Security has me all secure in a small room with fake windows and USA propaganda on all the walls. The posters are all very... how you would say... threatening! Talking about illegal entry into the States, human trafficking, ID theft and how the Americans can send you off to Guantanamo Bay for being a filthy excuse for a person.. WOW! How exciting.. now I am looking everywhere for a big guy putting on a white latex glove... Nope!! ~phew~

So the officer calls me over and asks me a whack of questions, I answer as best I can remember because they are asking me about details of 1987. I was kinda messed up then and I don't recall to much.

Anyway... the office shows me that I was arrested for a misdemeanour back in the day and because I am likely to be a terrorist or something in the guise of a tourist headed to Vegas, I am ineligible for entry into the great fearing country of the USA.

Add caption

Lets say I was shocked to say the least.. 25 year old conviction has barred me from the USA forever. Paranoid bunch of policy makers.. I would happily like to tell GW Bush that his policy people of his time are a bunch of melon heads...but I would rather avoid a trip to Guantanamo Bay.

Now our trip is off.. no Vegas and we are in Calgary. Lets just say I am not a happy man and Teddi is not a happy woman. We gather our stuff and Westjet arranges to have our deported asses hauled back to Victoria. We wander the airport a bit and get a burger then head to our loading area. We are a quiet.. menacing looking couple at this time.

We get home and yes.,.its pissing rain like never before... even the Gods think we need to cleanse our spirits with a good soaking... Bring it on!!

The rest of the weekend was a bit of a bust, I looked up everything I could to see if there was a way around this ban...nope.. I have to apply for a waiver to enter the states. It costs $585.00 and can take up to a year to process with no assurance that I would be allowed in. If I were to receive the waiver, it is only good for 1 year and I would have to re-apply and pay another $585.00 again. Repeat if I want to travel there....

I am a bit pissed at this but not to upset as I am happy to not visit that country full of political bullies. I know loads of people in the USA and they are the kindest, friendliest people I know.. but their government does them such a dis-service with their war-machine, tarifs and paranoid policies. I learned quickly when I travelled overseas that being a Canadian is a very good thing..

We took it upon ourselves to explore bits of Vancouver Island and go Ford truck shopping. This vacation has turned out to be a good one, regardless the initial upset and loss of a whack of money. Being deported is not covered under your travellers insurance and all was lost..

Tsk..tsk...

Even Westjet was not accommodating in helping us with any monies in return. So we paid for multiple flights that WestJet will resell and pocket the money.

Enough bitching till the end.

We wandered our way up to Coombs and talked to a couple old goats on the roof. They are fun to play with and they have the softest noses. Shopping in the stores up there is a nice change, bought a lions share of cheeses... I lovvvvvve cheese! We then wander off to what we thought was Spider lake.. but I made a left turn when I should have made a right and we ended up in Port Alberni.

We dined at Boston Pizza and then I saw a picture of the Mars water bomber and I needed to see it! Off we went.. following directions (well what I thought I heard) I saw the sign for Sproat Lake.. I was on a mission.... zooooooom... 8 1/2 km of wiggly road past the coolest tree I have ever seen...aka.. the Boot Tree, we end up at a hatchery.. umm.. HELLO!! wheres the plane???

Mars Water Bomber... oh baby!!

Heading back we get to the main hiway and head up a bit further past this exit.. and guess what ... THE PLANE!!! HOLY SMOKES ITS HUGE!!!

We looked.. and then took off back home...

Later in the week we went to Vancouver. Granville Island, Gastown, Repo.com and Ikea... Shopping overload! You should see my bear mug and Teddi's moose mug! The hiways are all messed up over there as there is a lot of construction and Ruddy the devious GPS unit we have, was misinformed and sent us on a wild goose chase a few times. Time to update the maps. We made it back home with a trunk load of Ikea goodies and beer from Granville Isle. I like Vancouver... fun and the traffic is insane!

The train station by GasTown

There was many other ups and downs with this whole vacation and if I could have a do over I would! But life does not offer do overs unless you have alzheimer's or some rare short term memory loss disease.

Our adventures will continue and I suspect they will always be insanely weird as this is what we are drawn too..thanks for reading and Happy Journeys