I love to travel. My goal is to see as many states and countries as possible during my lifetime. However with everything that’s been going on all around the world in the past few years I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to have to call it good with the number I’ve visited to date.

I especially hope I’m able to travel to Europe one day. All three of my kids had the opportunity to do so during high school. In the past their school offered a trip to Europe every couple of years, and they took advantage of it. Me? The only foreign countries I’ve visited so far are Canada and Mexico.

Mexico was a great trip. My husband and I went to the Playa del Carmen area to celebrate our 25th anniversary and stayed at an all-inclusive resort. Sun, sand, food, drink, and tourist hot spots. Canada, on the other hand, was a totally different story. 

It was the late 1980s, and my future sister-in-law had just graduated from college with a K-12 teaching degree. At the time there weren’t a lot of teaching positions available so when she was asked to come in for an interview at a school up by the Canadian border she didn’t want to turn it down. 

As it was a long trip to get there we decided to make an adventure of it, and she, my brother-in-law, my future husband, and myself got in the car and headed out.

The drive there was fine, and her interview went well. Afterward, we didn’t want to head back right away because it had taken so long to get there, so we decided to drive around and check out the area in case she got the job.

While doing so we noticed a sign indicating entry into Canada. Excited that I would be able to say I’d been in a foreign country I suggested we take a detour. (It’s hard to believe now, but at the time you didn’t need a passport to get into Canada or Mexico.) The decision was made and off we went.

We were waved across the border and there we were. Minnesotans in a foreign land. Disappointingly it looked exactly like the United States’ side of the border. We drove around for a bit and as there was nothing exciting to see we decided to head home.

Unlike traveling north into Canada, vehicles heading south into the U.S. were actually stopped at the border. When it was our turn we were asked what we had been in Canada for and how long we’d been there. Still happy that I could say I was now a world traveler, I piped up and said we’d just been driving around for half an hour. Apparently that was the wrong answer.

The border agent turned and spoke briefly with a fellow agent who had been standing nearby.  Turning back, he told us to pull over to the side and get out of the car. A number of agents were waiting. We were then asked to hand over our identification and wait in an office. As the walls were mostly glass, I was able to watch as the border agents searched our vehicle inside and out. It was a long wait. 

A naïve 19-year-old, I hadn’t considered how suspicious it was for someone to cross the border and then almost immediately turn around and come back.

When we were finally allowed to leave we breathed a sigh of relief. We hadn’t hidden anything in the car, but my future brother-in-law had been in trouble with the law a number of times. Due to this he didn’t have a driver’s license, so we had been afraid he was going to be held. 

Luckily they hadn’t searched our persons, as one of us may or may not have had something slightly illegal on them.

Lessons learned. Think before you speak, and just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Oh, and my future sister-in-law didn’t get the job.