Oh Canada, Where We Can't Use Our Phones!

I've rewritten our northern neighbor's national anthem: Oh Canada, where we can't use our phones! Truth be told, we can use them but it is quite expensive! Now then, our trip to Canada was far more interesting than a few complaints about data usage and wifi access, so where do I begin?

We left Chinook early this morning. We needed to get a money order and arrived at the grocery store at 8am. Well, no, in Chinook, you just can't get to the grocery store that early, so no money order. On we went to Havre to fix this nonsense!

Today brings us to our first residency in Canada: Cayley, Alberta. We were well versed in company protocol on crossing the border, but that didn't mean we weren't nervous! We had written a manifest of all of the stuff in our truck and went to find the US Customs and Border Patrol Office so we could get it stamped before we went to cross into Canada. Well, the internet led us to a gravel road with some very high speed wind but no office to be found. Still confused, we made our way to the border where the contents of our truck were of no concern, but we were still told to pull over.

After waiting at the Canadian border for a while (not too long, but long enough to hear quite the interesting conversation over an immigration dispute), we were told we needed to get work permits to be in Canada. We had been told that this might be a thing and were prepared but still! They literally printed out an official document and STAPLED it into our passports. They also stamped our passports! Do you know how much of a crazy person you need to be an American who gets their passport stamped to enter Canada? They don't do that for the regular folk, just those crazy enough to live in a truck for five months.

The paper is, for the record, quite colorful and has some signature Canadian maple leaves on it.

Into Canada we went with still quite a ways to go before we reached Cayley. On our drive, we passed Milk River, where we will be in a few months. Mandy wanted to stop after seeing a dinosaur statue from the highway but I nixed that idea so that we'll have things to do when we actually get to Milk River. Who wants to spoil the fun now?

We went to Tim Horton's for a really Canadian breakfast/lunch (P.S. I miss Dunkin Donuts and I have been lied to for America does not run on Dunkin as there isn't a single Dunkin in the entire state of Montana). A fear of mine was put to rest with a singular order -- Canadians have grilled cheese. Wonderful, I can stay here. Even though I got lunch food, the breakfast options at Tim Horton's did look banging, I'll be blaming the muffins for my upcoming muffin top.

Canada didn't look too Canadian and no moose sightings yet. Mandy said that so far, Canada looks a lot like Texas. I cannot attest to this but I will say that it doesn't look like Massachusetts. We had to drive past Cayley to get to our homestay in High River (cuz sometimes you don't stay in the town you're working in). Even though they weren't home when we arrived (and still aren't), they had made us soup!! It was absolutely delicious and once again, I am so thankful for this opportunity.

We also pulled over by this official sign for a few sweet pics as well.

Those are thumbs up. Good thing you can totally tell...