The Golden Ticket – My Title Finally Arrived

Once again there was another period of waiting; the weather and road conditions were absolutely terrible upon the title’s arrival so I had to wait for a good day to go get the car. Once that day came, my dad and I set out on our 13 hour adventure to New York. We had to dig out a trailer from under a ton of snow at our local U-Haul which was frustrating. The owner of the rental facility didn’t clear a path for us, but luckily we had the Jeep which made quick work of the snow. We arrived in New York, took a couple of hours to load up the car and pay the storage fee from CBI. One thing to note is how helpful CBI was with the transaction, they were very professional and decided to knock off $150 USD from the price because we have been customers of theirs for so long now. After a pleasant handshake, we were off to the Lewiston bridge where vehicles are imported into Canada.

Of course my dad and I being… well my dad and I, we sailed right past the US export station and went right into Canada. I filled out the proper paperwork on our end and was swiftly put into custody and sent back to the US side of the border to verify the title and export the car. The border guards were not happy with us, they took our passports and told me that I had not sent in the required information to the border, so the car has to stay in the US for another three days. I argued with the man, telling him that he was wrong and that I wanted to speak with the person who is actually responsible for vehicle export. Reluctantly, he sent us on our way to the export office. The Lewiston bridge requires notification that a car is being exported in at least three days in advance. I had completed this weeks ago, where the information stays in their system for six months. The border guard was under the impression that I had to submit my title via fax, as well as a notification of export; he was wrong. My dad was panicking – rightly so, but I knew that I was right.

Preparing For Arrival – Lovely Christmas Gifts

We walked to the office, which was closed in thirty minutes. Meeting the vehicle exporter, the first question I asked him was the three day policy. Just as I suspected, I had completed all of the steps correctly and the border guard was the person at fault. We chatted with the hilariously lazy man about the export, he asked for my VIN, found it on his system, stamped it and we collectively went back into the cold. This man did not want to get out of his chair, producing a large exhale when he finally did get out of his seat. Arriving at the car, he checked the VIN and confirmed it with the title. We were set to go now, and the anxiety quickly disappeared. After all of the stress, we crossed over the border once again only to be met with another awesome border guard, both occurrences the guards were more interested in the car than our passports. It made my day, seeing their faces light up and we drove up to their respective booths and having them realize that they almost forgot to actually look at our identification before sending us on our way.

Finally, we crossed the border into Canadian soil and made our way to the nearest Tim Hortons for a quick meal of a coffee and doughnut. In the fifteen minutes that we drove from the border to Timmies, we had two border guards awe struck when arriving at their booths, an entire (empty) building of officers checking out the car making bets as to what it is when filling out the importation paperwork, a man honking his horn at us just to give us a thumbs up, looks from every passing car and truck and finally a Tim Hortons filled with people staring out the windows at this beautiful car. An older man and his wife both left the building just to go inspect the car, giving it a thorough look down before returning to their car.

The Wait is Over – Welcome to Canada

Our trip wasn’t over yet, we still had to make our way back into Cambridge. Road conditions couldn’t have been better; there wasn’t a patch of ice, water or dirt our entire way back… until we hit Cambridge of course. Roads were indescribably bad but with my dads careful piloting, he was able to get the car safely home, after locking up the brakes on the last turn to our house. More hours of unloading and returning the trailer to the rental location followed us and brought us into nightfall. We had spent a couple of hours cleaning the garage during the previous night to fit the Triumph, what little space it takes up at least. It was finally here – after months of anger, patience, ripping out my hair, and stress.

It was home.

– Sean