Having never been to Havre, Montana, I made a trip planned with Jamie VanRhyn to do a day trip down in that part of the country. We made our way out, passports in tow, as well as Dot the border collie in tow - to be the new partner with Stephanie in Helena, Montana. About 3 miles down the road, I decided that I would be the one to drive if we were ever to make it down to Havre within a 12 hour period. You see, Jamie is not Canada's Worst Driving, she is Canada's Scaredest Driver - normally a 2 hour drive from Jamie's place, you can do the math to realize how slow she was going - turtles were passing us.
A quick visit with the border guard and we crossed uneventfully. We stopped for lunch at a lovely Chinese restaurant, and had to tell the Chinese waiter there it was the year of the snake (apparently it did not mean anything to him), and had a nice visit with Stephanie and Kammy (and I do believe we may see them crossing them into Saskatchewan later on this year for some dog trials- and maybe Dot can come back to the homeland as well). After Dot was safely stowed away in their truck, Jamie and I went to Wally land and did some denting of the credit cards (only small dents since things cost less). We also had to stop at Big Red (the Walmart for ranchers) and pick up a few things, as well as stop at a craft store to obtain some fabric (which wasn't bought) for Jamie's upcoming wedding. We had lots of time to get back to the border before it closed.
So we thought.
Missed it... by 9 stinking minutes.
We decided it was Louanne Twa's fault, because we were looking for some dog tie outs at Big Red - which we didn't find.
So back to Havre we went, to spend a night in the bustling Walmart store - to buy underwear, toothpaste and a nightie. Apparently we weren't the only Canadians who had to come back - the Walmart ladies smiled quite broadly as they told us...and filled up the toothpaste bin.
It will forever be remembered that the border closes 5 pm on the Alberta side, not 6 pm like on the Saskatchewan side - that is until the time changes occur - which would be 12 am on this particular night.
The only question remained - what time does it open in the morning?
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