Yes, we are flying to Cancun on November 1st.
"But what about Igor?", you ask.
Well, Igor will also make his way to Mexico... but without us!
We will be flying Ottawa to Toronto, and Toronto to Cancun on November 1st.
Long time readers will remember that I need a special visa waiver to enter the United States. (You can read more about that story here.)
And I was prepared to get the waiver when we arrived back in Canada at the end of last month. But when I did the research, I learned that two things have changed.
The waiver would be approved... that was never a question. And, it would be approved for five years. However, the application price increased on June 16th... from $585 USD to $1,100 USD! And, there was a backlog they were still trying to get through from the number of people applying after Covid restrictions ended, and there was a minimum 12 month delivery time frame.
So of course I would not be able to get the waiver in time for driving Igor to Mexico at the beginning of November anyhow. And, I was totally put off by the now $1,100 USD ($1,516 CAD) cost.
Other than driving through it to get to Mexico, I have no other need to go to the United States. And to pay that kind of money just to drive through for a couple of weeks is ridiculous. Just the fact that I need this waiver in the first place is ridiculous.
So I decided I'm not going to play their stupid game.
Fortunately, we have a wide circle of traveling friends around the world. I started asking some of them if anybody wanted to take a motorhome trip through the United States. And I got a positive response from our friends Bjorn and Freya in Belgium.
We hashed out the details, and they are going to fly to Montreal on October 18th. We'll pick them up and bring them back to Ottawa where we will be house sitting for the month of October. Igor will be there ready to go!
They will spend three weeks or so driving Igor to the Mexico border, arriving at the border around November 12th. We will arrange to arrive at the border at the same time where we will be able to import Igor into Mexico under our name.
Our life is a logistical nightmare, but we always manage to figure it out!
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The Keurig K-Cup Mini is back at the low end of the pricing range.
And in Canada...
As an American, I'm irritated for you, but happy you found a work around and hope Bjorn and Freya have a great time while they are here.
ReplyDeleteThank you and we aren't annoyed at the American people, just the stupid government! Bjorn and Freya are going to have a great time, we are sure. They love adventure as much as us, if not more. :-)
DeleteWow, that's quite a change in plans! Will Igor be ready for them? They are brave souls being the ones to take him on his maiden voyage. I would be way too chicken, but I guess that's why I'm sitting at a desk at home instead of out traveling the world like you and your friends! It is ridiculous about the waiver...sorry about my stupid country. :-(
ReplyDeleteWe knew about this for a while because Kevin looked into it as soon as we arrived in Canada so we were already looking at alternative plans.
DeleteIt won't totally be Igor's maiden voyage as we will be driving him to and from Nova Scotia so we will have had a be of time to get a feel for him. He is very sound mechanically and it helps that Bjorn is a mechanic and his speciality is older vehicles so we aren't the least bit worried for them and neither are they.
It really is ridiculous about the waiver, it is just a money grab at this point!