This morning, after saying good-bye to Ed and Elaine and their daughter, Kim, we headed back to the states enroute to the Seattle/Everett area where we have an undeveloped piece of property. Our first indication that things were not going to go well was at the USA Customs station on highway 83 near Westhope, North Dakota. When we were asked what foods we were bringing back from Canada? We mentioned the frozen fish filets given to us by Corrie’s brother. Big mistake!!!Turns out you can only bring back frozen fish that was caught in Canada if and only if:
---someone in the vehicle has a valid Canadian fish license. It does not matter if the fish were actually caught by a Canadian with a license and given to you as a gift.
---the filets are frozen in such a way that each filet is flat and clearly visible (ie two in each plastic bag, not several mushed up like ours were).
---and one square inch of skin is left on each filet so that a fish expert can tell the species by examining the scales (we are not making this up!)!
And it turns out that this is a US Fish and Wildlife violation, so the Customs agents felt they had no discretion (ie we couldn’t throw the fish away). So the violation forms were filled out, the evidence was tagged, and we departed after an one hour delay. Apparently we will hear from US Fish and Wildlife some time in the future to find out what our fine will be. We were given a choice of whose name the violation would be entered in the big DHS computer for future scrutiny when entering the USA, Dan immediately volunteered Corrie, since he travels more and doesn’t need anymore hassles! The whole situation reminded us of the Arlo Guthrie song about the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, all that was missing was the photos with circles and arrows!
As we were bypassing Minot en route to US Highway 2 we heard a loud noise and felt a shudder from the RV’s drive train. Up until that point the rig had been running fine, with all gauges normal. Even after the noise there were no alarms. Dan immediately pulled over and got out to investigate. He was back in the rig within 2 seconds and shut the engine down. What he had seen was a large trail of fluid extending from the rear of the rig and extending down the highway. It appears to our untrained eyes that the drive shaft coupling had broken and taken with it one hydraulic leveler, several transmission lines, the transmission fluid pump, and holed the bottom of the transmission. As well bending the mud flap, dinging up the front bumper of the toad, and coating the front of the toad with tranny fluid.
We won’t bore you with the details of the four hour wait for a tow truck. We will tell you the first one our insurance sent couldn’t do the job. The next one could do the job, but wasn’t covered by our insurance (can you say $200 per hour?). Anyway we now sit in the parking lot of the only Allison transmission shop in Minot, vowing never to come near this town again (if not the state)!
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