Cannucked---Part 2

(For Part One see HERE.)

One of the utterly ridiculous facets of the Chicagoland area is the insane amount of tolls you must pass through to get from one side to the other. Even worse is how, once you are on a toll road, you must pay to leave and return. When Brandon and I hit the Skyway heading west towards the suburb of Elgin (where the office is) we were seven dollars richer then when we finally made it to our hotel. A preview of how America will operate under the Obama presidency? Perhaps.

On Friday morning we woke up early and moved out smartly for the Wicker Park district of Chicago where the editor/associate producer Jared lives. To get to his apartment we had to drive through Little Puerto Rico, literally passing under a giant metal representation of the Puerto Rican flag as we did. Puertoricanos were everywhere and all the billboards and storefronts were in Spanish. In random nooks and crannies of the depressingly snow covered alleyways were cardboard shrines filled with candles lit to Our Lady of Guadalupe. For a while, I totally forgot I was in America. This would unfortunately prove to be the most foreign part of the trip.

When we had picked up Jared, we swung out East through Chicago and began the long, horrible, awful, unforgiving, boring, snowy, drive across Michigan. In previous posts I may have postulated that Indiana is the most worthlessly terrible state in the US, however I must amend my opinion to say that such is only true during the warmer, corn-filled seasons. In the winter, by far, Michigan is the state where hell opens up and releases its horrors. We made it through that frozen Hades however, and arrived just before nightfall in Port Huron where we crossed the bridge to Canada and proceeded to drive through the border check.

Brandon was nervous about the rental van, and it showed. When the Candadian Border Patrol asked for the rental agreement, Ole Poopy Pants nearly went literal with his nickname. However, the Mountie was fooled (of course) by the photoshopped agreement and we passed his scrutiny unscathed. Then things went wrong. No doubt thanks to Brandon's nervousness, our beards, and Jared's crazy-eyes, we were directed to imigartion for further inspection.
Profiled, I tell you. We were straight, no bones about it, profiled.
Our troubles were just beginning.....

To be continued....