Making it into Canada

Because Lucian and Sequoia’s school started earlier than the other kids we had to get them back sooner. We planned to meet Justin in Twin Falls, Idaho and give him the boys. Then we were to meet Bekki’s parents in Boise where we would pick up Emilio. Then onto Oregon City where we would pick up Zoey and Fynn, arriving in Canada after that. All of this, we anticipated, was a 2-day drive.

As we were preparing to leave Yellowstone we realized that the water pump in the RV had gone out. Fortunately, Dale has switched these out before, and there was a large RV store in Twin Falls. We told Justin to meet us at the shop where we bought the new pump. We all ate lunch in the RV, gave Justin his boys and we went our separate ways after Dale installed the new one.

We made it to Oregon City by Saturday mid-morning, meeting Clayton and Jen at the park. They brought pizza and a ton of food for our trip. Jen always makes sure that everyone has lots of food.

On our way to Canada

Kids played while Dale and I repacked the RV for this 2^nd part of the grandkids trip. I made sure that passports and consent letters were all together, along with all of my immigration paperwork.

6 hours later we were at the Canada border. We thought that it would be best to go over at the Peace Arch, even though it was so busy, with over 1-hour wait. I already knew I’d need to go thru 2 interviews so it was no surprise to go into the immigration office after going thru the border check.

Canada, our new country

The immigration interview can be difficult, at least according to info from the various websites. But, I’d watched an interview with an immigration attorney so was quite prepared. My interview was quite easy and the officer was really nice and helpful. She did ask again if I’d ever been convicted of a crime anywhere in the world, this is after going thru 2 FBI checks. I answered no, she signed my immigration papers and welcomed me to Canada as a new permanent resident! All of the years of planning and work, it really happened!

Our next huge concern was getting over to Vancouver Island. We had an hour drive to the ferry and were certain we’d miss the last one to Victoria. Sure enough, when we got to the ferry building the last ferry to Victoria, we did see, however, that there was still a ferry to Nanaimo. This meant a 1-1/2 hour drive down to Victoria, but we’d keep our campsite and could still do what we wanted to do in Victoria.

We got onto the ferry to Nanaimo. Poor kids were so tired and fell sound asleep. Our big mistake was not taking them into the truck to sleep, instead, we let them sleep in the lounge. Then trying to wake the kids, get them into the truck and get off the ferry quickly was a real challenge.

1st Ferry ride for these kiddos

We made it to Victoria by 2 am, set up our RV and fell into bed.