Feb 18th, 2014 by rallyadmin
Well, it’s been over 8 months since John and I got back from our round the world trip so I guess it’s time to close up that trip. I’m getting so lazy about the last blog post of a trip that it’s even surprising me. And a new trip is starting (actually, it has already started.)
The drive up Baja was uneventful. And the closer we got to the border, the worse the traffic became. We’d hoped to cross back to the States during the daylight but that just couldn’t happen. So here we are in Tijuana, in the dark, trying to find the US port of entry.
There are signs but it’s darl and the signs aren’t very good. John’s done this before but not recently and I’ve not been through here in more than 30 years. What could possibly go wrong?
It turns out that plenty can go wrong. Somehow in the dark, we get lost trying to find the traffic queue for the border. I’m driving and John is trying to follow the signs but we’re just going around in circles. How can we have this much trouble finding the busiest port of ntry into the US?
Finally, we see a sign that says US Border. We jump across a few lanes of traffic irritating no small number of other drivers and dive into the entry. Hmmm. Something’s not right. There are three or four lines of stopped traffic way over there. Here there’s no traffic and only one customs gate. This doesn’t look right.
And, of course, it’s not right. We’ve somehow managed to avoid all the normal entry lanes and have presented ourselves in the “ultra special, no riff-raff, you have to have special permission” Global Entry lane which we have no business being in. Pull up to the customs officer. Present our passports. All hell breaks loose.
It’s bad enough that every time you go through customs you end up feeling like you’re in grammar school and you’ve been sent to the principal’s office for some offense that you really don’t understand. This time it feels like we’ve done something that’s really bad and we’re in for it now.
The customs officer tells us that we’re in the worng line. That we shouldn’t be in this line. That it’s very bad for us to be in this line. Then he fills out a small yellow piece of paper, stuffs the paper in our passports and puts our passports under the Cherokee’s windshield wipers(????). “Pull over there and wait until someone comes to get you.” Sphincter tightens appropriately.
I pull the car over to the designated area and another officer points us to a parking area and we park. The signs make it very clear that you should “REMAIN IN YOU VEHICLE.” Got it. We wait. And wait, And wait.
About 45 minutes later, a customs officer comes to the car and takes our passports and the yellow paper. And we wait. And wait.
We’re in “secondary”, as in secondary inspection. It’s kind of like the local police’s version of the drunk tank. Everybody that they want to take another look at, ends up in “secondary”. Suspected smugglers, terrorists, liberals all get to wait in “secondary”. When you watch those Border Patrol shows on cable, this is where they tear the cars apart looking for drugs.
And here we are – two old men who’ve driven, uneventfully around the world through 27 frontier crossings without any real hassles now stuck in secondary trying to get back into our home country because we got lost and ended up in the forbidden Global Entry lane. It is rather amusing in a weird sort of way.
The short version: after about 2 hours, another customs officer moves up to another parking stop and we wait again. Eventually, he comes to us and lectures us about how we had screwed up. Being in the Global Entry lane when you’re not a Global Entry passport could result in a $5,000 fine(!!) but since I was new to the area and I was driving he was just going to give us a warning. Oh, and search the car. Very thoroughly. Oh well.
Eventually, he turns us loose and we re-enter the US. It’s almost midnight as we head up I-5 towards San Clemente. As we enter San Clemente we stop for some late night burgers and head on to John’s house..
Just after midnight we pull up to John’s house and park the Cherokee in the spot where it was when departed back in April of 2012. We’d done. We left on a lark and we made it 14 months later.
Into the house for wine and burgers. And then to sleep. I’ll be flying to Charlotte in the morning. The trip is over for John. For me, just another day to get home.
Obi-wan