One family's trip to Disney World

This is all about our trip driving from Manitoba Canada to Disney World Florida. Traveling through 16 states in 24 days! All the planning, all the excitement and everything along the way. A complete budget/cost summary will be included for your own planning needs.
Showing posts with label Border Crossing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Border Crossing. Show all posts

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Last day of travel Iowa to Manitoba, Canada

8 am Iowa 22C
Mt Pleasant, Iowa to Boissevain, MB Canada
865 miles, approx. 13 hours driving time

Lots of painted quilts on barns!  So fun!
Holland, IA 14.497 @ $3.449 $50
pink skittles
Construction on the #218 so we took some side roads #20, #14, #8

We're seeing many little to large country farms.  Their rhubarb is already going to seed, ours isn't even popping up yet!

We noticed the thinning of traffic as we headed back north towards Canada.  The land is looking more "familiar" to us as it is has more farming.
Mei bought "Funyons" with great buyers remorse.  Then she saw some "Flamin' Hot Funyans!"  When we arrived back home, our friend from California told us how she had adored Funyans when she was a teen.  They were not our thing, but the chickens seemed to tolerate them.  Next time we'll stick with the gums, chocolate bars, cereal or sweet tea.

They still have very nice tourists stops, and we sure appreciated that while we were travelling.  So nice to get a bit a feel for a state when you are literally breezing through.
Iowa Pig Poop ?
Minneapolis.  Opened our bottle of "sweet tea"  All in favor. YUM!  We'll buy some more of that next time.

Of course I'm looking at the quilts!





Beautiful tourist booth, rest area for our picnic
We did notice some lack of landscaping around houses?


 Then we're getting more northern and the rest stops along the highway make you a little scared...



We're almost home, it's getting colder and less populated.  Colder, less traffic and we know we're almost home when we start seeing Bison Transport Semi's with Manitoba license plates.

I drove while Gregg got some sleep. Gas stations in Dunseith, ND were closed, so good that we had enough fuel to get home.  Reached the Peace Garden International Border Crossing at midnight.  We had all our receipts in hand, all written down and added up and categorized for them.  They asked the typical questions "How long", "where", "drugs", "alcohol", "weapons".  $847.93 declarable goods, plus the girls little purchases. We were waved through and arrived just after midnight to my folks near Boissevain, MB.  Ahhh sweet sleep!


A whirl wind trip and we arrived home to the grass just starting to get green and "the first hot days we've had".  Guess we hadn't missed anything while we were sunning ourselves in 30C weather :)  YEAH!

Girls are already plotting how to go back again next year.  So we told them, well, if you save up your portion of the costs, we'll go again.
**** Note to self **** Be careful what you promise, it looks like you'll have to come true on it!  Girls worked in the summer at a few different jobs and saved up their portion for the trip!  Now I'm scrambling to sell some more aprons, hats, etc to make up my portion :)

DISNEY WORLD 2015 trip is in the works! Stay tuned! May 1-15

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Crossing the Canada/ US border

With Passports in hand, we made our way to the border crossing at the International Peace Gardens near Boissevain, MB.  It is on Highway #10 in Canada and Highway #3 in North Dakota.

I had made a copy of everything we packed just in case they would like to see it.  The crossing guard asked us a few questions "Where are you from?"  "Where are you going?"  "What do you do for a living?"  "What is the purpose of your trip?"  "Do you have any weapons, etc etc"  then he took Gregg's mango's.  Yup, anything with a pit.  The apples were okay because they were actually from Washington.  Gregg thinks/hopes the guard got to enjoy the mango's for lunch.
All loaded up with a car topper and a giant cooler on a trailer hitch set up.

Very quick crossing and we were off by 12:30 pm!  Windy, 5C weather, but we were more than thrilled!  A little later than we had planned, but we had dropped our dog off with my folks and had a nice visit with them too.

A little breezy at the Turtle
Our first stop was Dunseith North Dakota.  I remember going to Dunseith with an Aunt and Uncle for the HUGE Dale's burgers.  They'd feed 4 people with one burger.  Specially made buns and all.

Gas price was $3.69/gallon and we filled up for $59 US.






Look at all the flavors of Extra Dessert gum!  Best selection we found!

Mei bought some of these later on, and well, thumbs DOWN



Well ~ cross the border and you can purchase a sword at the truck stop.  Gregg loves this sort of thing.

We have had tremendous amounts of fun with this trick lighter.  It is shockingly great fun!  Come on over and we'll let you light the next bonfire !
Gregg got an adapter for the car/music and we got Uncle Si plastic cups for $1



Why would there be two toilets stuck in a little bathroom?  We got a good laugh over this one!
No French writing on these wrappers

... and the journey has officially started!  We are beyond excited and eagerly anticipating the next stop!