Friday, June 13th
The Route
Today we leave our great northern neighbor and head back to the good ole USA. Our travels today follow much of the same path that we took on our travels to Banff, however instead of crossing the border at Roosville we crossed at the aptly named Eastport, Idaho.
The other difference, some of the nice downhills we took coming in to Banff, we had to climb back up and over. This gave the ol’ Schlanni Bus a run for its money, but it handled it like a champ.
Departing Banff
Since we didn’t have full-hookups at our campsite, our first stop on departure is the dump station. This is the area of campgrounds where RVers can go to well, dump, their holding tanks. Our RV can be fully self contained with 90 gallons of fresh water, as well as 70 gallons of ‘gray’ water, which comes from showers and sinks, and 50 gallons of ‘black’ water, which comes from the toilet. At 4 nights, our stay at Banff was one of our longer trips without full hookups and we only ended up using about 1/3 of our fresh water tank. But that means we had about 30 gallons of not so fresh water to dump.
We left our site just before 9am and ended up waiting in line at the dump station for about 20 minutes. It took us about 10 minutes to dump, and we were on our way out by 9:30.
The Border
While our entrance into Canada was quick, easy, and friendly, our return back into the United States was a wee bit more complicated.
The adventure started just with entering the border crossing. The signs indicated there were 2 lines, one for automobiles & RVs, and another for commercial trucks. The commercial truck lane was pretty backed up, but we entered the automobile line. As we were progressing down the line, we were met by a very angry cattle hauling trucker who started yelling at us, and even threw his trucker cap at us as we drove by.
Unsure what was going on we continued on to the checkpoint where we ultimately found the automobile lane was closed and they were routing all vehicles into the commercial truck lane. Unbeknownst to us, we were ‘cutting the line’.
Once we realized this, we waited until all of the trucks that were in the line got through, and then merged into the open lane.
We had a friendly chat with the CBP officer and thought we were in the clear until he asked us if we had any eggs. Unfortunately, given the bird flu situation, eggs are not able to cross the border and we still had some of our home grown Schlanni Farm eggs. This led to us having to park and head inside.
We entered the building and spoke to the staff there, we walked through all of the items we had in the RV relating to fruits, vegetables, animal products, plants, and seeds. They then came out, had us take the pups out and they searched the whole RV top to bottom, inside and out. When they were done, they came out with a handful of items.
In total they kept/destroyed:
- Our potted Snake Plant – as we couldn’t prove it came from the USA
- Eggs
- The 12 grapes left in the bag
- Rice (purchased in the USA and still in the original bag?!)
- Dog Food (We buy in bulk and keep it in a plastic tote. Since we didn’t have the original bag they couldn’t prove its origin and had to destroy it)
We were told we could have received a $300 fine as we didn’t properly declare everything (we forgot about the grapes, blueberries, and some raw potatoes) however they decided not to fine us. They also provided us with a list of banned items (that they do not publish on their website) advising us to make sure to dispose of those items before crossing the border. We were also advised to ensure we had a good inventory of everything in the RV before we cross the border.
Additionally they also asked to see the vet records for the pups to confirm rabies vaccinations, and to ensure we completed the CDC Pet Import form, all of which we had available.
Overall it was a very interesting experience. It seems enforcement has certainly been stepped up, as our past trips across the border did not include this same level of scrutiny.
Idaho/Spokane
After our border adventures, the rest of the journey down US95 was really smooth sailing. We have been quite lucky in avoiding traffic through this whole trip, but I expect as we continue west towards the coast our luck will run out.
US95 brought us down to I90, just west of Coeur D’Alene. We were running a bit low on gas (about 25% remaining) since we did not fill up at all in Canada, and there were very few options in northern Idaho. In pulling up our Open Roads fuel program map, we noticed there was a very significant difference in diesel cost between Idaho and Washington, with prices in Idaho being a full $1 cheaper per gallon.
Given that, we made a stop at a Maverick at the last exit in Idaho and managed to fill for $3.57 (before our discount) instead of right around $4.50 one more mile down the road.
I probably broke some Maverik code by wearing my Bucees shirt, guess I may need to pick up a new shirt on our next gas stop at a Maverik.
In total we added about 72 gallons of diesel for about $250 after our discount.
Arriving at Spokane KOA Journey
After our gas stop, it was a quick 10 minute drive down the road to our stop.
Trip Totals
Total Miles Today: 349.4
Fuel Used: 38.3
Day Average MPG: 9.1mpg
Trip Total Miles: 1630
Trip Total Fuel Used: 189.9g
Dinner in Spokane
Once we got camp setup and the pups settled we hit the road to find dinner in downtown Spokane. Our campground was about 20 minutes from downtown, and we were at the height of rush hour so we hit a bit of traffic.
We got into downtown, parked in a parking garage and took a walk through the downtown area, ending up at a small little restaurant called Durkins, which is known for their cheeseburgers.
We ordered a few cocktails. I got the The Blacker The Berrie, and Cat got the Whenever, Wherever (I also ended up getting one of these as well).
We both ordered the Durkins burger. It was quite delicious, and the fries were fantastic!
After that we continued our walk downtown, popping into the Lego store for good fun, then went back to the camper and called it a night!