ATTEMPTING TO CROSS THE USA BORDER - can we get in? [S7-E65]

We're going to attempt to cross the border. Can you get back into the US? Fingers crossed this morning, it all goes OK. Always a little bit nerve wracking when you do a border. Passing one of those, come inside. Right, do you want me on your side? We're Marianne and Chris. In 2018, we quit the 9 to 5 and bought Trudy, our camper van. We are currently on an adventure to drive the circumference of the world. We are not on Vancouver Island, we are not outside Aunt Julia's house. And that is because earlier this week, we jumped on a ferry, we headed over to mainland BC and we arrived in Harrison Hot Springs. But a long story short, we ended up catching some kind of coldy fluey bug. It wasn't Covid, so that's all good. We are feeling better today, but we spent the last few days in bed feeling pretty sorry for ourselves outside Stephen and Karen's house here on this RV park in Harrison Hot Springs. Who have been absolute troopers, feeding us homemade soup, looking after us, getting us a set of fruit lozenges and herbal teas. Thanks guys. Thank you. But we are now heading South and the weather has taken a turn. The blue sky, don't let it deceive you because it is absolutely freezing. And tomorrow there is a lot of snow forecast in the mountains and we have to, whichever direction we go in, go over a mountain range. We've got frontal systems plowing in from the Pacific, bringing rain and mountain snow. So we're heading to Penticton today. Today is the weather window before the snow hits. And yeah, it's about three hours drive from here and we're keen to do it before the snow arrives. But it's going to be a beautiful day today. Thank you for being fabulous. Bye guys. Oh it's been so lovely with those guys, despite feeling poorly. Lovely guys. So this RV park's got some huge motorhomes, static motorhomes. Oh it's a very bright green car. It's a phenomenal place isn't it? People from all over BC come out. Harrison Hot Springs is like one of the main resort towns, where people come to holiday because it's just an incredibly beautiful place. It feels absolutely amazing to be to be hitting the road. I wasn't feeling well when we left the island and this is the first day that we're hitting the road and we're back on our travels. After waiting absolutely weeks and weeks and weeks to get Trudy fixed. She's got a new air filter in. All is good and she seems to be purring well. So yeah, we're excited to be hitting the road again today. You can tell that the weather's turning, because it doesn't matter how many times we drive the windscreen, there is loads of condensation on it. A lot of people said to us that we've been really lucky with the weather. But this time of year, coming up towards the end of October, to still have warm weather in British Columbia is quite unusual. But it has definitely turned and it feels funny not to be in our shorts. The last couple of days, there have actually been little sprinklings of snow over the mountains. I think we've definitely got good timing to get over the mountains before the heavy snow comes. I don't know whether you can see as we're heading into the sun here, there's snow on the mountains right at the top there in front of us. And all the trees are turning a beautiful golden colour. It's a lovely morning this morning. The drive over the mountains today is about three hours. A couple of interesting spots to see on the way. Hopefully there isn't snow on the path already. It was forecast a little bit yesterday, but today's definitely the best gap in the weather to make that dash over the mountains. This area of British Columbia around Harrison's hot springs is famous for a mystery animal that lives in the forest. Apparently, this is the home of the Sasquatch. Bigfoot! They're not that elusive, we did meet one! We did indeed have a photo with a Bigfoot. Okay, so we are just coming into a town, the town of Hope here in British Columbia. And this town is famous for a movie that was filmed here. It's hard to believe that it was filmed here. When you watch the movie, you would think it was filmed in the States, but the movie I am referring to is the original Rambo. Morning! You visiting somebody around here? Well this is the bridge going over the river, leading into the town of Hope. And they're absolutely mad for all you guys growing up in the 80s, to imagine that the movie Rambo was filmed here! First blood! Sylvester Stallone arrived here as an ex-vet from Vietnam, and then caused complete mayhem in this little town. He was minding his own business. So why are you pushing me? I haven't done anything to you. First of all, you don't ask the questions around here, I do. Do you understand? Secondly, we don't want guys like you in this town. Actually I can imagine the movie now looking at it. It does look familiar, doesn't it? You can imagine the shootouts on these streets with Sylvester Stallone. It's got a very sort of cool old feel to it, doesn't it? So yeah, we couldn't resist but stopping and having a quick look. There you go, the first thing you see is a local Bigfoot, there is a Sasquatch. Our friend Randy is a tree surgeon, look here's one for you, this is Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, and that is a carving of Harry, it's huge! I can't believe we're in Hope, Rambo! So just outside the visitors centre, look this is a statue of the Sheriff from the movie Rambo, and all the way along here they've got different statues. There you go, I can see Rambo coming up here. Rambo first blood! That's him right here in the town of Hope. How cool is that? It's hard to believe this is wood isn't it? This is all carved out of wood. Oh it is, look you can see all the the rings from the tree. That's very cool. The town's got a very old old-school feel, look at that old cinema there. I found a very very cool bench, looks like a camper van on it. Welcome to Hope, and a big Bigfoot! So after a very cool quick walk around Hope, we've jumped back into Trudy and we're starting the drive, 2 hours 42 minutes across the mountains to Penticton. But first of all we need to go and find some diesel, because we're nearly out. It's been a wonderful little town, £1.83, it's definitely cheaper here than it was on the island. I know it's £2.12, £1.83 is for normal. It's funny as Chris said earlier, you can just see like a little amount of icing sugar on the top of the mountain there, and over there, winter is coming! $130 later, we've still got a full tank! Just over three quarters, that's $330 Canadian dollars. Okay so the route we're taking today is on Highway 3, that's the way we're choosing to go to Penticton, over Manning Pass, and already look at that, there is snow on the mountain in front of us! Not on the road! Stephen and Karen have very kindly checked out, on that there are cameras, there are like live cams on these mountain passes, to help guide people on which mountain pass or road they can go on. Highway 3, steep winding road, drive with care! How pleased am I it's not snowing! It's great to be back on the road! It really is! Must use winter tyres! So yes, from the 1st of October to come into the mountains, you need winter tyres, and you'll know whether they're winter tyres, because your tyre will have a little image of a snowflake in a mountain. And we checked ours and they do, which means that we're legal here, but apparently if you get pulled by the police, they will look at your tyres and look for that symbol. That's it, we're going up, up and away! I know we're going up, because my ears are popping like crazy from that cold after that! We're only 550 meters high, it feels a lot higher! It does feel a lot higher! And I'm sure it will get a lot higher! It's a fantastic drive through the valley here today. We did say that we were going to go to Jasper and Banff again, and that was the original plan, until the weather forecast suddenly changed. We were going to go through Banff, Jasper, down through Calgary, but we've had to change our route. But the colours at the side of the road here are absolutely amazing! Look at this! This is stunning this morning! The weather started to get a little bit hazy, but it's still from the forest fires that are happening in the area. The rain over the past couple of days did clear it, when we were down in Harrison hot springs, but it's coming back! You can smell it up here! Slowly getting higher, 1320 meters and counting! How's your ears? Clicking and popping a little bit! Yeah, it's got a bit of pressure in the head! I'm waiting for it to go! So when we were talking to Stephen, he was explaining that they don't salt the roads over here, like we would do in the UK, and the reason for that, madly, is that sheep and mountain goats come down and lick the salt off the road. They're road lickers! Which means they get killed and create accidents! So what they use is some kind of like potash, like a grease, some kind of thing isn't it? Snow, there is snow! The first bit of snow by the side of the road there, that shows you how cold it is! I feel really festive! We're heading down now, and wow what is that? Is that a mine or a dam? Looks a bit unusual doesn't it? If you look at the landscape there, it's being cut away! Ah it's mining, definitely mining! I'm looking at what's in front of us, more cars in front! That's a huge RV! There's an RV towing a truck, which has an ATV quad bike towing in the back. Just when you thought the colour of the trees couldn't get any better, going along this river today! Golden coloured trees! Driving down the road here, we've spotted some red flashing lights, oh it's a lot of police cars! What's going on here then? Can't see what that is, maybe a search and rescue or something? Yeah search and rescue it says on the truck. That's not good, somebody's gone missing hiking or something maybe? We're just going past lots of fruit trees, fruit farms, we've seen wine signs, and this part of British Columbia, is one of their main sort of agricultural farming areas. It's a valley full of fruit and veg, it literally is! I suppose it's protected, look at all those pumpkins there! There's loads of pumpkins lining the street, look at that! If all goes according to plan, we'll be crossing back into the United States tomorrow, and that is the reason we didn't stop to buy any fresh fruit and veg. Yeah true, because we can't take any with us, we're going to be eating it all tomorrow morning. Vines, grape vines, wine, ah wine there you go, that is wine! Oh loads of dark grapes, they look ready for harvest there. It's harvest time isn't it now? That's why they've just had Thanksgiving, but it's interesting because these mountains, that we were worried about giving a snow on the road, they're actually protecting all these fruit crops. Look more wine! Loads of it! How am I not drinking wine? It does look like health better in Turkey Marianne, you're right! But we are just about to arrive in the town of Pentikten, which is where we will be hanging tonight. We're meeting Wendy and Andrew, some online friends of ours, that we haven't met in person yet, so we're excited to hang out with them. We've also found a very nice restaurant for tonight, and we're going to meet a tribe member. Hello, how are you doing my friend? Good, how are you? It's so nice to finally meet you sir! We're so good! Nice Insta360 camera, how are you doing? It's nice to meet you too, how are you? We're good! There you go, Wendy, Andrew, oh look at that! This is a lovely little gift! We love chocolate glue! You did, it's perfect! She aced it! It's perfect! You aced it! You rocked it! Love from Wende and Andrew! All in, everybody in! We're going to town, we're going for dinner! Yay! Okay, we picked up the hitchhikers! It's a bit of a grey windy day this morning, so we spent the night parked up outside our friend's RV, here in this park in Penticton. Thanks to Wendy and Andrew for your hospitality, we went out for a great dinner last night. Today is the day that we're going to go back to the US, we're going to attempt to cross the border back into the US. We've heard so many rumours about having the B2 visa, and about can you get back into the US without leaving one of the contiguous countries? Yeah, hard border crossing! So today we're going to find out! So fingers crossed, we have been out of the US now since the 7th of July, our previous six months allowance has run out, and so today is the day! So fingers crossed! And thank you to Wendy for making us this lovely little RV! How cool is that? Right, let's go to the US! If there's any doubt that we're taking the weather with us, look how horrible it is now! It's turned really really windy, all of the leaves are coming off the trees. The weather is definitely turning, and we want to head South as quickly as we can! The wind last night was nuts, was rocking the van, it was rocking the van was a rocking last night people! I really enjoyed it, I really liked it, it was really lovely and relaxing. Another RV park, it's quite a thing actually in North America, people staying and living in these RV parks, cold in the winter I think. Yeah I just think it's an easier and more affordable option for most. Yeah definitely. The drive to the border is about an hour's drive this morning, looking at the lake it just shows you how windy it is, because there's white topped waves, it's really wavy! Look at that! It's a beautiful beach, but today is not that day. I can imagine in the summer everybody's doing volleyball and enjoying the beach, but yeah you wouldn't want to be hanging out on the beach in today's wind. The sun's doing its best to come out this morning, but I don't think it's going to win the battle looking at the clouds ahead. It's looking pretty rainy and wintry. So we just sat at this traffic light, we're trying to figure out what was going on, because you can see the two lights here and just on the corner there, and there's a guy walking up the road with a hockey stick, an ice hockey stick! Very Canadian! How Canadian is that? There's been a mini rock fall on the side of the road, and he's using a ice hockey stick to knock them out of the road. That's pretty cool, there you go! He's entertaining himself, practicing his hockey and clearing the road all at the same time. The geese are flying South, we're following you! The landscape's looking very dramatic on this grey day, very pretty driving down by this lake, and they've got these red flowers and bushes in the sides. There are lots of birds, still passing vineyard after vineyard as we're heading South. Harvest time must be just around the corner. It's a shame going through such pristine farmland, with loads of fruit and vegetables that we can't actually buy any, because we're crossing the border. You're not allowed to take any fresh fruit, veg, meat and dairy with you, so this morning we emptied everything out, and we're starting afresh when we cross into the States. We'll have to go shopping and start again, but it's a shame we can't take advantage of all this lovely fruit and veg here. So we're nearly at the border, and there was this one spot we noticed online, that we wanted to come and see, the Spotted Lake. How unusual is this lake? Have you ever seen anything like that before? So the lake actually has high levels of magnesium sulfate, and calcium and some other minerals, and over the summer months in this sort of desert climate, the lake dries and reveals spots in the lake. It's really really unusual, and during the war they actually used the salt from this lake to make explosives, but I have never seen a lake that looks like that! Mad! Okay after that quick pit stop, we are now literally five to ten minutes from the border. You nervous? No, but I was going to get the boulder out, because we have a motto, prepare for the worst, hope for the best! Okay, all goes wrong, put the kettle on! Put the kettle on! But we are, yeah we are nearly there. Always a little bit nerve-wracking when you do a border, just to make sure that you get in and there's no complications, and there's not rules that you didn't understand or realise or everything else. So fingers crossed this morning, all goes okay. The town at the bottom of the hill is called Mosoyuz, I think that's how you pronounce it, which is where the border crossing is that we're taking today. All right here we go, here we go. Good morning, turn your vehicle off. UK Where are we going? We are heading down through the States, down towards sort of Texas and route 66 down to California, and then eventually on to New Zealand or Australia. How long will you be in the U.N? Five and a half months, five months. Oh actually we do have one block of cheese, I have some cheese that I was going to eat before we left, but I haven't managed to. There's parking spots one through four, park in one of those, come inside, your ID we'll meet you inside. Okay so we've eventually made it across, they had to issue a new I-94, we were there probably for about an hour. Yeah very thorough, lots of questions, but it wasn't complicated, and they respected that we didn't know what we were talking about. But we're in, and they've stamped us in for another six months, so we're permitted to stay in the States until the end of April next year. South we go, that's a big relief. Just crossing the border and the valleys opened up, the mountains go way way off into the distance, and it just feels different doesn't it? We've been driving for a couple of hours now, and the landscape has changed, it looks very dry, almost desert like. A bit similar to some of the roads we did in Turkey actually, and then on the on the right hand side here, you've got the river and the lush greenery from the water on the river, and the hill on that side has got loads of vineyards. Yeah it's a strange strange landscape here. All the way along there's these massive piles of wooden crates, because there's so much fruit here, they're all to pack up the fruit from the fruit trees. Obviously very fertile ground and gets the water from the river. Looks like there's a big dam there in the distance, and the river, there you go, and in half a mile we're turning left to try and find a park up down here. And it's down where those picnic tables are there, look I think I should be able to stop there, there's toilets there look at that. Your destination is on the right. Hey! That is huge! That is massive! Turbine runner! It's a 52 tonne turbine runner, and it's one of 11 runners that are at the Chief Joseph Dam. Huge! It would be for the night wouldn't it love? Beats Walmart! Beats Walmart that's for sure! There's a little toilet block there, nice views in the sun. Welcome back to America! There's a water tap there as well, oh yeah the US, in fact North America so far, we haven't had a problem finding places to stay, and water seems to be available too. Wow look at that! A nice sort of mincey, halfway between a mince and a spag bol, and a chilli con carne, there's no chilli in it. And then we'll have that and a bit of a wrap, with a bit of salad and jalapenos. I think we're gonna have a really quiet lovely night tonight. It does feel quiet, like a day with a quiet night, I'm exhausted! Spiced up with a few jalapenos, Marianne doesn't like spicy, I have you! So I get to add my own spice, and a handful of lettuce.