But I'm An American!

We slept late in Kamloops and then drove around searching for food. We settled on some sandwiches at a Tim Horton's - I had never eaten there before. Exciting!



We headed east toward Vernon, but along the way we came across the B.C. Wild Animal Park. Nothing beyond evening rest is planned on this trip so we went in and made some animal friends. Bears, racoons, llamas, elk, eagles, a chicken, a peacock, and even a monkey were there. I'll upload all the pictures soon. I have to say it was pretty amazing to stand three feet away from a large grizzly bear!



We continued east and then south toward the border. I figured that it would be an easy task compared to the crossing at Sumas. We were coming back to America, where we are free, right? I can understand being treated like a criminal upon entering Canada; after all, they have a right to ask where their guests are going and what they are bringing with them.

As you can probably guess, the Border Patrol agents at the Oroville crossing were not as cooperative as I may have hoped. They just knew we were smuggling drugs. They asked us several times about our homes, our families, our employment (she didn't know what a valet was!) and most of all, why we went to Kamloops and then came back for no apparent reason. They searched the car again, and even after searching still did not believe our innocence. They let us go though, unable to prove their theories.

That annoyed me. They made photocopies of our passports and our driver's licenses. Who knows what they are going to do with that information? We were treated like criminals because a few governmental bureaucrats lacked imagination and common sense.

Ah, well. We had dinner at Whistler's Family Restaurant in Tonasket and then settled in here in Omak for the night. Free breakfast tomorrow sounds excellent - biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, donuts, and more. Eastern Washington hospitality is serious business. The federal bureaucracy could learn a few things.