Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

I spent the weekend at Whistler with 40 members of the Husky Snowboard Team, of which I am the president for. The weekend was absolute mayhem. The days consisted of awesome snowboarding - Matt, Koos, and I made some killer turns on Whistler on Saturday. Sunday was also a good day, but we nearly froze to death in the 20+ mph winds and ~10 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Saturday night was fun - Matt and I had a night on the town and finished with some fun games at home. Sunday night was probably the most fun I’ve ever had at a bar. 30 of us stormed into the Amsterdam Cafe and took over their outdoor patio. We were all laughing, yelling, and cheers-ing all night. We would pick people out who were walking by the patio and just start yelling at them, “eyyyyyyy,” or “whose house? dawgs house!” or we would chant, “H.S.T. … H.S.T. …” It probably sounds like one of those belligerent, fraternity-esque drunk nights, but it wasn’t (I try not to have those). Everyone around us and all the people we yelled at were laughing and having a good time, and so were we. We took off Monday morning and made it back into the U.S.

You might be wondering why I didn’t say anything about Friday night. The answer is because I’m saving the best story for last. There were four of us in the car, one guy I knew, call him John, and two other guys that I met for the first time that day. I was driving John’s car because mine is in the shop, and we left the University of Washington at about 12:30pm. The car ride to the border was fine - we all got along and had a good time talking about this, that, and the other thing. We get to the Peach Arch at around 3:00pm, and the line to cross the border is pretty short. I ask for my passengers’ passports and get ready for a casual, easy encounter with the Canadian border patrol. Man was I wrong. The woman at the counter was drilling us. “Do you have any weapons?” “Where are you going?” “What are you doing?” “Do you have any alcohol?” “Do you have any weapons?” “Do you have any alcohol?” All of these questions were easy to answer, but she opened a can of worms with the last question, “Have any of you been arrested or convicted of anything lately?” I answer, “No.” John answers, “No.” One of the dudes that I just met answers, “No.” The other dude answers, “Yes.” The woman proceeds to ask him questions about his recent arrest, and through this interview I find out that this guy had been arrested for possession of marijuana about a year ago. The border patrol gets out a bright orange slip, writes some info on the card, and tells us to go inside.

There’s a pretty long line when we get inside, and the spirits of most people are definitely low. We wait in line until finally we get to the front and begin to get interrogated. The interrogation ends with the woman behind the desk asking me for the keys and requesting that we take a seat. We wait for a pretty long time until finally the border patrol personnel return. They asked us who the owner of the silver bag is, and the dude that got arrested a year ago responds. At this point, I’m thinking, “Shit. He brought weed.” I was right. The guy brought weed across the border and didn’t bother to tell us. Turns out no one got in trouble, not even him, but we had to wait at the Canadian border for three hours. After all of this waiting, they tell us that we have to go back in the U.S. and then back into Canada to proceed to Whistler. Shit.

We spend another 90 minutes waiting in line, getting our car searched again, and getting interrogated at the U.S. border. Luckily the wait to get back into Canada was only 30 minutes, though, making our total time at the beautiful Peace Arch park five hours. On our return back into the states, the border patrol officer knew that we had just been denied entry to Canada. He says to us, “Back so soon. What happened?” We tell him the truth and point to the guy that brought the weed in. The border patrol officer looks at the guy and says, “Why would you bring weed to Canada?! That’s like bringing sand to the beach!” Haha. Jokes on us.

The rest of the drive goes by just fine, and we arrive in Whistler at 11:30pm after leaving Seattle at 12:30pm. What a trip. Oh, and I also got pulled over in Whistler for drunk driving. I was driving slow because I thought the roads were icy, and apparently it looked like I was driving under the influence. I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol all day, so they let us go.

Lesson learned: if you’re driving across the border with people you don’t know, then make sure that they don’t have anything illegal on them. I told all of my passengers not to bring anything illegal, but apparently I wasn’t clear enough. I’m lucky that Canada is very lenient about drugs, otherwise I probably would have gotten arrested even though I don’t smoke weed and didn’t attempt to bring anything illegal into Canada. This was another addition to my bad luck lately, but it was followed by one of the best board trips I’ve ever been on. I’m happy to be back in Seattle.