Winnipeg or bust!

The five of us spent a lovely weekend in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, after a late-Friday-night snap decision by me and Jen to flee the country for an overnight trip. We'd been lukewarm on the idea until we mentioned it to the kids, all of whom immediately seized upon the concept that none of them had ever been out of the United States.

"Will we be able to understand them?" asked Ellie. I explained that while some Canadians spoke French, they all spoke English as well. "And Spanish?" Ellie asked, hopefully.

Knowing that the paperwork requirements were toughening up, even regarding travel to our northern friend, I made sure to bring Jen's and my passports along. We set out Saturday morning after Ellie's ballet practice for the four-hour trip. Katie noted that we were ditching Fargo on its first nice weekend in months.

As we crossed the border and approached the Canadian immigration booth, Katie piped up from the back with a tidbit she'd heard the night before from our beloved Canadian-native relative: "Uncle Seth said kids need birth certificates to get into Canada." "No [kidding]?" I thought.

No [kidding].

We were waved aside and told to go into the main office. The Canadian border official there explained to us that we needed some sort of documentation for the kids, not so much for his purposes, he implied, but for those mean guys on the American side of the border, who might very well not let us back in without it. He asked us a ton of questions, including where my parents lived and their phone number. But he was firm – we needed some sort of paperwork. Without it, we would have to turn back.

Crap. We didn't have a scrap with their names on it. Not even their YMCA cards. This is Jen, waiting moderately patiently for this to be worked out:


What we ended up doing was calling Maria, the lovely woman who stops by to take care of Indy when we travel overnight. She very kindly agreed to swing by the house, retrieve the documents, and fax them up. Jen explained where all the documents were (right).

Maria found birth certificates for Katie and Ellie, but Joey's was nowhere to be found. The only thing with his name on it there was a savings bond with his Social Security number on it.

Maria trucked over to a supermarket faxed it all from there to the immigration office, and it worked. After about an hour and a half delay, we were free to go (left).

While we were waiting for the faxes to arrive, the immigration official called my father. I knew it had been a mistake to cough up his contact information. I think it is only because Jen and the kids were with me that he resisted every impulse in his body to tell the official something that would have fulfilled his lifelong dream of landing me in a foreign prison. In the end, the only mildly smartass thing he said was to confirm that his daughter-in-law was Jennifer Moore, but to also note that he has three daughters-in-law named Jennifer Moore.

Once we were on the road again, Jen patiently explained to Joey that because we hadn't found his birth certificate, we might have to leave him behind when we crossed back into the United States. "This is my dream come true," Katie said softly. This is why we had three kids, I told Joey, so that we'd still have plenty left over if we ever needed to leave one behind.

Ellie was also all for it, since in her estimation it would reduce the amount of fighting in the household. We pointed out to her that since there would be no one else for Katie to fight, "She'd have to fight you." Ellie wasn't buying it: "Joey always starts it."

Joey wasn't buying much of this nonsense either, though he did meekly inquire about it several times while we were in Winnipeg. He ordinarily knows better than to believe that sort of hassling from us, but I think he sensed that the stakes were so unusually high that it did make him a little nervous. Perfect – I can almost never make him nervous anymore.

We arrived in Winnipeg around sunset, checked into the lovely Inn at the Forks along the river, ate dinner, and turned in.

In the morning, Jen went for a long run around downtown while I took the kids to the Children's Museum, a nice facility that was literally across the street from the hotel. The coolest thing they have is a real diesel locomotive sitting smack in the middle of the building, with a full-size passenger car behind it.

We left downtown, hit one of Winnipeg's two Costcos, then swung around the northeastern edge of the city to the Miracle Ranch for a trail ride:

Ellie was certain she wanted to ride her own horse until about five minutes before the ride started, when she lost her nerve. She managed to regain it just in time to jump atop Sugar, and did very well:

We were out for an hour through the scrub of the ranch itself, with a curious detour through the adjacent strip mine:

For the record, that's Ellie right behind the leader there, and Joey, Jen and Katie bringing up the rear. Joey's horse was "Radigan," and Katie's was "Fudge," which she found significant, since the last time she went riding with Auntie Meg, her horse was "Brownie."

On the way back, the very nice American immigration official accepted the fax of Joey's savings bond without comment. In the end, the only hiccup was the delicious salami we'd bought at Costco: No Canadian beef is allowed across the border. I fetched it from the cooler and found it was pork salami, which we did not have to surrender.

As we returned to Interstate 29 headed to Fargo, Joey was congratulated all around.