Greetings from Mount Vernon

Heh. I'm in a Round Table. It's got free wi-fi with purchase. Skip is chowing down on cheese pizza, and unloading most of the cheese on my plate, and he's guzzling Sierra Mist. (Usually, he's a Coke guy, but this Round Table has Pepsi, and that vile Lymph of Satan will not cross his lips)

I just had to ask the people at the next table what town I was in. I really should pay better attention to the road signs when I scream off on an exit

As to the trip.

Uneventful thus far. Easy getting the tickets, easy getting boarding passes. easy going through security (although Skip had to strip down to his t-shirt before they'd even LET him go through the metal detector. I guess those orange fleece shirts just look too dangerous, or something.) Easy boarding the plane, easy flight, good knitting on the plane.

Only glitch so far is the rental car. When I went up to the counter, the lady said "You've rented a PT Cruiser, but I can upgrade you cheapy-cheapy to a Chrysler 300 [ed. Long term readers may remember this as what our children affectionately call a "Land Yacht"]" Well, to me, cheapy-cheapy is only cheap if it's FREE, so I declined. Even if she was going to drop the upgrade fee to $59. Sorry, lady. I've already shelled out enough money today. So she gives me the paperwork, and says "Go to stall S14, and the keys will be in the Cruiser's ignition"

OK, first off? The parking garage is a zillion miles away from the rental counter in the airport. I could've walked to the border in the time it took me to find the car. And then? There's a HYUNDAI parked in S14. Hyundais are NOT Cruisers. I may be car-impaired, but I do know that much. So I have to hoof it back to some rental-car kiosk in the parking garage, to say "Where's my car?"

Turns out that all the time she's SAYING "PT Cruiser", she's MEANING "Hyundai Sonata". Dur.

The car smells like smoker-breath being covered up by pine air freshener, but it could be worse. It could be vomit that the freshener is trying to mask.

See? I'm looking on the bright side.

But now it's time to brave the border. Skip has eaten his fill of pizza, and needs more soda.

So far, this has been a good bonding time for Skip and I. We have laughed FAR too hard while eavesdropping on "too much information" conversations in the boarding area. Of course, now I can't remember them. Probably all for the better.

Now it's 2:30. Another hour to the border, I'd guess, then an hour to the ferry terminal. I just hope we don't get held up at the border. That would really stink. Though it'd be pretty much par for the course in this whole "being a legal alien" thing that we've got going on. As we were driving to the airport this morning, Kelly and Nate trying to go back to sleep in their seats in Homer, and Skip and Ken chatting about something that neither of us can remember... hmm, it involved the GPS, and what route is best to go to the airport, and how sometimes you just fly by the seat of your pants, and you still win... I realized that I was taking ONE of our children across an International Boundary WITHOUT HIS OTHER CUSTODIAL PARENT.

Hello? Can you say "recipe for disaster"? I thought you could.

So while Ken's driving, I'm writing a letter using my best counterfeit-Ken handwriting, explaining that he knows that I am taking Skip to Canada to get a passport. I did everything but sign his name. I have my boundaries, you know.

And now I think that my time has just run out here, in the land of free-wifi-with-purchase, so I will save this, and bring you news from Canada.

I hope.