Questions from answers

This is a story I’d like to tell you if you don’t know the story, but it’s a long story. So here goes…
Back on July 1 ,1998 we (myself and a friend Cara) went out to see the fireworks for Canada Day with a girl, Brigitte in her early 20’s visiting from Switzerland who had just arrived a few days earlier. Being bummed that we missed the fireworks,I thought we would go visit a friend at a nearby restaurant, but he wasn’t working that night, so we decided to go to the beach. The time was about 10:30 at night. Heading to the beach in White Rock ,the border crossing to the US is nearby. So I asked Brigitte if she had ever been to the States before she said ‘no’. So I thought we should take her to the States. Problem was she left her passport at my parents house. Keeping in mind this was pre-911 etc. I said, no problemwe cross all the time and it’s no big deal. So I get to the border guard and I said we were heading to get some gas(which is not that unusual and I would have got some gas.) 2 problems arose: First, I was driving my parents car and my mother had been across the border earlier that day(I found that out later) so they were suspicious why the car was crossing twice in one day, and second problem was I said we were all Canadian. Needless to say I had to explain that Brigitte was indeed Swiss not Canadian, and no we were not smuggling her into the US. But not surprisingly they didn’t believe me after I lied the first time. So I was fingerprinted, the car was impounded and I had to call my parents in the middle of the night to pick us up. I think it took about a month and $500 bucks to get the car back and I had to show up in a future court date. I think that was my most embarrassing moment in my life and a good lesson learned.
In the court appearance in Seattle, I took it too lightly, I thought I could explain the situation and it would clear things up, wasn’t that easy. In hindsight I should have hired a lawyer. Bottomline verdict, I was not allowed back in the States again. So I pursued some legal counsel, in the end cost a fair bit of money and didn’t get me anywhere. So I had one other option to apply for a waiver. This waiver would allow for tempary entry to the States usually one year at a time. So I applied for a waiver and about 6 months of waiting time, but about 2 years since the initial incident, I received my first one year waiver. I was so happy, because I thought I would never go to the States again. So from July 2000 to July 2001 I was able to travel freely to the States, and I did take a trip to Texas with my wife, it was also the last time I saw Caedmon’s Call on tour.
Knowing that my visa was to expire in July 2001, I think I reapplied for a waiver in the Spring sometime. I think I had forgot to send the right amount of money or something, so my application process took a lot longer than the usual wait. In the meantime 9-11 hits and the priority of my application went way down the list. I thought I’ll never hear from them again. In April of 2002 I did finally get another year permit. During that time my wife and I enjoyed our last major trip without kids as we camped on the Oregon coast and and northern California. I then went through the process again, keeping in mind the application costs about $300 plus usually 2 rounds of fingerprinting(one for Canada and one for the US). In Dec 2003 I received my third one year application. Ironically even though I could go to the States I never made it during the year I was able. So now I went through my forth application process and after waiting for what seems like a year I received my forth waiver, but they extended the waiver for 5 years!. So I am really happy about this and I can visit the US again. I think I should take a trip to Bellingham just becasue I can. So by the time the Olympics come in 2010, I’ll have to think about renewing my waiver again as it expires in Feb 2011. I hope to be able to take a few trips in the meantime to once again explore our neighbour.
Freedom is a good thing.