Sitka or Bust: Commute The World

Heading north to Canada in my convertible meant the weather had to change from forecast clear skies to roads covered in slick ice and gritty salt crusting the perimeter of the windshield. That’s just how it is when my dad decides to go to Quebec; he’s always bringing a blizzard with him. We started out in the wee hours of the morning, before the sun had melted the ice into a layer of even slicker partial mixture, and by the time we hit the halfway mark of our journey we were getting hungry for some border food.

We pulled up at a little restaurant on Main Street of Newport, VT for a taste of home cooking without the hassle of washing our own dishes. Named Brown Cow, it featured picnic style checkered table clothes and plastic chairs crammed cozily into every possible space. Papa Bear ordered a meal that I personally shied away from as it was named “the cow plop” and consisted of sausage gravy over scrambled eggs and homefries. Nothing against the meal, but I’m just not a gravy for breakfast person and the name didn’t help me at all.

Just a forewarning though, Saturdays are apparently “the-wife-pays day” and I have been mistaken for my dad’s wife since 8th grade. Either he looks really young, which I hear is the case, or I apparently have the bitter housewife vibe down-pat.

Now, I don’t usually do the whole restaurant critic thing, but this was some damn good food. We ordered and literally waited four minutes before the food had arrived, fresh and steaming hot. I got some raisin toast that was obviously homemade, and deliciously so. The ham steak was perfectly grilled and the eggs were fluffy. I very rarely clear my plate at restaurants, and especially not with breakfast, but this morning the plate could’ve been given to another customer it looked so sparkling clean.

With full bellies, we drove onwards and I pulled out our passports to cross the border only to realize that the May expiration date Papa Bear said was on his passport, was actually a March expiration, from five days ago. Thinking we would be turned away at the border I became disappointed, but Papa Bear claimed Canada doesn’t care at all about passports so they’d let us through. Shrugging it off as an experiment, we tried for the border, and surprisingly enough got through without even a comment.

Now, getting back into the country is going to be the true challenge. The next blog will most likely hold some strip searching, interrogation, and crying. Tune in.