E30 love at customs

I live about a 90 minute drive from the US/Canada border, and cross the border into Canada several times a year. Most of the time the border-crossing process is a brief, routine exchange with the border guard in the booth: where do you live, blah blah, what is the purpose of your visit, blah blah, how long will you be staying, blah blah, do you have anything to declare, blah blah, etc. etc.

Yesterday I was travelling to Québec to run the Rallye des Neiges with my son Neil. (I'll try to get around to writing a separate report for that -- it was a great time!) At the Highgate Springs/Phillipsburg border crossing, we pulled up the booth, and the polite young Québecois customs agent takes our passports, asks the routine questions, and taps his computer, and then smiles, nods at the car, and says "What year is your BMW?" -- followed by "Ah, it's the X, all-wheel drive, nice car!" That was kind of cool.

Then after a great time at the rally, we were again crossing the border back into the U.S. It was 2:30 in the morning, and Neil and I were both pretty wiped after a long night. We pulled up to the booth, and after the initial questions from the U.S. border guard, he smiles, looks at the car and asks "Were you guys at the rally? I just checked through the other guys in the Subaru. How did you do?" Then he asks "Hey, do you know anything about when the Sports Car Club of Vermont is going to start ice racing on Mallett's Bay? I've been checking the forums online (points to his computer) but I can't find the info." Well, as it happens, I'm a former board member of the SCCV, and an active member, and have been following the progress of the ice closely waiting for the ice racing to start myself. So we had a nice chat about cars (the border guard has an Audi S4), and ice racing, and once the ice gets thick enough we'll probably meet each other again out on the lake. How cool is that?

You meet fellow gearheads in the most unexpected places.

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Dave
'91 325iX

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Dave_G
I was travelling to Québec to run the Rallye des Neiges with my son Neil. (I'll try to get around to writing a separate report for that -- it was a great time!)

Let's hear the stories!

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Ferdinand
Let's hear the stories!

OK, tonight, I promise!

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Dave
'91 325iX

Rallye des Neiges stories are beginning to leak out...

see: stevemckelvie.com

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Ferdinand
Rallye des Neiges stories are beginning to leak out...

Hey, quit poking! I posted my stories two days ago!

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Dave
'91 325iX

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Ferdinand
see: stevemckelvie.com

That was a fun read. I'll need to post a comment there to let them know what happened. We were car #3 and they were #4, so as he said we were seeing their headlights in our mirror most of the night (at least on the long straight parts). It's interesting to see that Neil and I weren't the only Yanks to be taken aback by the pace of the checkpoints!

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Dave
'91 325iX

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Dave_G
[Hey, quit poking! I posted my stories two days ago!

Well ain't that bizarre. That whole new section "Car Talk" just appeared on my browser. I swear it wasn't there earlier.

Reading now...

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Ferdinand
Well ain't that bizarre. That whole new section "Car Talk" just appeared on my browser. I swear it wasn't there earlier.

It's a new section that I added on January 7, and made an announcement about here. Your browser apparently still had the old page cached.

If you want to make sure you haven't missed anything, you can try the "recent messages" link at the top right of the page.

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Dave
'91 325iX