So yesterday Evan Oxner (the KVWC intern) and I decide to go down to Calais to pick up our new Water Bottles for Kings Valley. Not a big deal right? Well, we're going down to pick them so Jim asks us if we would also pick up the church baptismal liner that has also come in. To do this we must first borrow a full size pick up truck which we do (and a special thanks to Gary Myles for the use of your sweet rig). This is the reason I am called in at all to this assignment as Evan is not yet 25 and the insurance requires a drive of 25 years of age.So, we have the truck, we have the directions, we're all set, Gary even has a GPS in the truck so there's no way we can get lost. We drive down, get across the border fine, make it to the pick up place (C&E Feeds, which by the way is loaded with boxes of things delivered there for Canadians to pick up, why it cost so must for UPS or FedEx to send something an hour further up the road I don't know, but I was about to find out). So we get the Baptismal liner in the truck (and we're glad that we have the full size, cause the thing just fits). As a matter of interest the guy at the Feed store informs me that this is the first baptismal he's had shipped through his location.
Now, we have the baptismal and 9 boxes of water bottles (out of 10 boxes of water bottles, but that's another post, and if anyone is traveling through Calais and wouldn't mind picking up a box for the church, we'd appreciate it). We travel back to the border, get through the check point they send us in to the office to pay our duty. When we get in there, guard tells us that we're at the wrong bring. SO apparently a baptismal is considered a commercial good and must be taken to the commercial warehouse which located through the Millstream crossing just up the river. SO we turn around and head back through the border, now entering the United States with a very strange and very large looking object strapped to a vehicle we don't own. We explain to the guard what we have, it takes a minute, as, like the Feed Store, they haven't had many baptismal tanks come through this location. At this moment Jim decided to call Evan to see how things are going. And if you've ever been on a cell phone at a border crossing you know, this does not make the guards any happier. Now we have a strange, large piece of cargo and my accomplice is on his cell phone (and won't hang up after repeated attempts by the guards to have him do so). Luckily, we get everything explained to the guards and they send us on our way.
Now we find our way to the Millstream crossing and they send us to the commercial warehouse. We get there and now have to be come import agents. Fill out about 10 forms put stickers on things, check where each item was manufacture, what state is traveled from and the overall cost of our goods. About and hour and 100 or so dollars later we are on our way. We get everything to the church fine (water bottles will be available for $10 this Sunday if you would like your own) realizing at this point that we only have 9 of 10 water bottle boxes.
That brings us to an end to my adventure, I'm left with the sense of a good days work and a few fiberglass splinters to remember the occasion.
