We have sooooo much to tell you all… it has been a crazy few days since leaving  Simons in Montreal! We left there and schlepped 400 miles to Algonquin Park! It took us hours and hours (about 6) and on our drive through to the campsite we saw a bear! A really big wild black bear! and dear and beavers and all kinds of creatures which of course filled us with joy knowing that we would be camping in the wilderness with the bears!

We set up camp for a couple of days and caught up with the wedding blog and then hit the road again to make good time to get to Alex’s family in Michigan for Thursday to spend a long weekend with them. Only 1000 miles to travel in 3 days…easy!

We stopped in Elliot Lake (because of our friend Eliot!) and sunbathed on the beach and hired a boat to go exploring on the lakes and then headed for the border in Sault ste Marie.

This was where the fun really began! Being typical Brits and thinking a border crossing would involve a flash of our passport we sat in line and waited our turn. We pulled up to the border crossing and fought the window down (the mechanism has broken so you have to press the button and simultaneously drag the window down…a 2 person task) which you can imagine was a good start! The officer took our passports and asked us several normal border crossing questions and then asked if we were carrying any fruit!!!!!!!!! Not weapons, drugs or stowaways…fruit! Of the citrus variety! We obviously were not anticipating this so kind of question so laughed and said yes! He said ‘I need you to get me the fruit’. I went to the fridge and bought the lemons over which he made me drop into a bin. He then asked ‘do you have anything else in there…any grapefruit?’, so I got the grapefruit and reluctantly dropped those in the bin wondering what he was going to ask for next…he had one hand on his gun belt and the other holding out the bin and did not look the slightest bit amused when he asked for our ‘tamayders’ (tomatoes) and I went to get those. At this point he had had enough of us and called over the walkie-talkie ‘we have ourselves a WTP359 can someone come and get them please’. He asked if we were carrying alcohol and I was absolutely distraught thinking how we would manage to drink the ice cider, the box of wine, 5 beers and a bottle of very good red wine we had in stock as I was NOT putting that into the bin!

We were told to drive into a parking space and step out of the vehicle while they went in to search it. They said we would face a $300 dollar fine for any alcohol and we told him what we had. He sent us into the office as they searched the van with a fine tooth comb. Very nervous by now we were questioned by an officer about our history, how we had met, why we were there, what were we thinking crossing the border with citrus fruits etc etc and took our finger prints. He called Alex’s aunty who asked him if there was going to be a problem and he said we would be on our way very shortly! At that point we remembered how to breathe and completed the paperwork nescassary. The now kind officer then showed us some maps of places to visit whilst in the UP (Upper Peninsular) and wished us well on our travels.

We drove out of Sault ste Marie over the Soo Locks thanking our lucky stars we had not had our alcohol confiscated and vowed never to be so unprepared for a border crossing again! We drove in to Michigan and drove to Tahquamenon Falls to stay the night.

The next day continued across country in the direction of the family and stopped in at the most amazing bear sanctuary Oswalds bear ranch. The bears have all been rescued and nursed back to health. They all looked so happy in their huge natural environments and the cubs were having the time of their lives playing and making everyone laugh.

We spent the rest of the day on the road (if you can call a dirt track a road) towards Lake Superior (you will see how crazy our journey was when we get the map online) and then down  the breadth of Michigan UP to Michigan Lake  and stayed in Manistique for the night.

We got up at 5am to watch the sunrise on the beach (sounds nicer than it is) and then set off to complete our journey to Watersmeet to catch up with the family!

And that is another story! Shooting, pontoon boat sailing, eating our own body weight in meat, being savaged by dogs and a wedding all in 3days!

See what happens next in our wedding travel adventure!