Because You Asked

Here’s the crazy behind the story.

My friend decided to get married in Canada where her fiancé’s family lives. She invites Hubby and me to attend. She mentioned at some point that if we flew into Buffalo, NY and drove across to Toronto we wouldn’t need a passport.

We booked our flight, car, and hotel through Priceline. We’d never used them before so we were hoping all would go well. (BTW – raves for Priceline!)

To save money and to get my daughter to her grandparents we flew out of San Antonio. We were on a tight schedule. Left Corpus at 6:30am. Got to my mom and dad’s at 8am. Said good-bye to daughter.

Drove to my brothers and picked up his GPS. Finally get to San Antonio. Parked car, took shuttle and checked in our bags. We made it just in time to grab a coffee before we loaded the plane.

We were flying baby planes all the way to Buffalo. Let me just say, I’m not to wild about baby planes – give me the big mamma jumbo jet.
P-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaase!!!

We got the best seats on baby plane, took off on time, landed on time and headed straight to an-oth-er baby plane. WOW – it was happening just like clock work and that was great because we only had 45 minutes between flights. Right before we were to board again hubby and I were talking about how smoothly things had gone, no glitches, and we even had great flights for BABY planes.

I say to Hubby, “God has shown great favor on us today!”

As soon as I said that I felt a nudge and a little woman says, “Ma’am this is for you.”

You’ll never guess what it was?

A pamphlet track and on the front it said “God Loves You!”

“See, Hubby, God is showing us favor today! He loves us.”

Little did I know how much favor we were fixing to need. We landed in Buffalo. Luggage made it. Found our rental car. Plugged in the GPS!!!

Let’s just take a moment and all say Hallelujah together for GPS’s!

Hallelujah!!!! Hallelujah! Hal-le-luuuuu-jah!

About thirty minutes up the road we were to cross the Canadian border. We whip out our handy-dandy driver’s license and have them ready to hand over. We slowly approach the border agent and present our photo ID’s. We know how to do this – we spent twenty-three years in the military.

(this will be in abbreviated form from here – you can just imagine the rest)

Agent — “Sir, I’ll need your passport.”

Hubby — “Sorry. I didn’t bring it.”

Agent — “Ma’am, and yours.”

Me — “ I don’t have it. I’m sorry. My friend said we didn’t need it.”

Agent – “Then I’ll need your birth certificates.”

Hubby — “We don’t have those either.”

Agent – “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST CROSS INTERNATIONAL BORDERS WITH A ONLY DRIVER’S LICENSE.” think sarcasm and high pitched tones

Me — “Well, here’s our military ID’s. Seriously, our friend said we could just drive across and we’d only need a passport if we flew.” stupid, clueless and teary-eyed

Shaking her head – the agent is pretty perturbed – asking a million questions – totally not amused – she thinks we are ditz’s – we have military ID’s and don’t know we need proof of residency to cross an international border!

Finally, agent says “You may proceed, but don’t ever think you’ll get by with this again.”

Me to Hubby – “God sure has shown us favor today! Hallelujah.”

Enough said about my brilliance and taking my friend literally. Welcome to my world. I fretted over our return for four days.

Yep, yep, yep — the trip back into the US was just as grueling. Mercy!

I am still amazed at God’s grace and goodness.

I was almost a woman without a country – nobody wanted me without a passport! pout!