Possible road trip....Illnois, Canada, Maine and back

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 9:01 PM, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
> My personal experiences are that big border crossings (e.g. at the terminus
> of U.S. Interstates) are less likely to detain you for questioning.  The
> smallest ones are suspicious of anyone who isn't a local and will want
> to find out why you used _that_ crossing.

I had that experience going to Ottawa via a small crossing in upstate
NY.  It was two guys from Ohio (one who was _born_ rather near the
crossing, by coincidence) late at night.  We got grilled but let
through.  Our good answer for why we were there was it was the fastest
trip with the most time on the US side (where the gas is cheaper).
Second longest time ever was coming back from a camping trip near
Hamilton - I had my handmade "tent" (a Mongolian Ger/Yurt) on the roof
of the car.  They wanted to know what the hell was on top of my car
since it didn't look like any tent they ever saw.

Mostly, I cross at Detroit/Windsor and Buffalo/Niagara, and I agree
they are less suspicious why you'd cross there.

> On 10+ crossings I have spent between 30 seconds and 2.5 hours...

I've had 30 seconds numerous times and I've had about an hour - that
was in a VW Microbus painted camouflage.  They didn't tear everything
apart once a cursory search found nothing that obviously didn't
belong.

-ethan