There is nothing more perfect than waking up with a purpose. Today, my goal was to prepare for an early trip across the border to the United States. The clock was set up in an ungodly hour of six o’clock am, if you just finished an evening shift, waking up with less than five hours of sleep is no pic­nic. Fortified with lots of caffeine, I zombie like slept waltzed into dress­ing and grooming. I am hoping that am presentable enough for the hubby, so he won’t get any ideas of pushing me into the Fraser river. In less than twenty minutes, we found ourselves waiting in line, cars idling to cross the US border thru Washington, destina­tion Bellisfair, one of many, shop­ping Mecca hubs for BC residents.

Now, you, who are not in Canada might ponder, why is it that Cana­dians love to cross the border and invade our neighbor the US of A to simply shop? The answer is hey, their goods are comparatively inex­pensive than what we have here. I don’t know why that is either, all I know, when you look at the labels you will see that almost all products imported to the US and Canada are made in China, but somehow theirs came off cheaper. Way, way cheapo.

There’s actually a good trade off, we have with our neighbor Mr.USA. They visit us, mind you not to shop, but to enjoy our sceneries like our snowy mountains, our different bodies of water, the weather, our parks, downtown, our provincial ways (which always inadvertently becomes the butt of jokes for their comedies) and of course the friend­ly people (sorry, I just had to include that one in!)

The border inspection didn’t take long. The only thing the border guard said was “ Patricia can you please take off your sunglasses”. Now, if I was in my glorious alert self, I would take that as a compli­ment, but since I know that I must looked hideous with bloodshot eyes, I actually cringe.

Fast forward to Bellisfair, to spend our hard earned Canadian dollars and give them to the Americans. We Canadians after all are said to be one of the most generous people in the World. Kidding aside, we are just being practical our dollars will buy more across the border than in our home turf. Sadly this phenom­enon should actually be adressed by the Canadian government. More and more are crossing the border to spend outside than inside Can­ada. A very sad situation if one will actually think about it.

The shopping as expected, more than made up for the inconvenience of waking early in the morning and waiting in line. Savings galore were a welcome treat, I couldn’t believe the great bargains I made. I am actually looking forward to my next road trip. Which I am pretty sure will not be too far in the future.

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