Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Line in the Sand

We are visiting family in Buffalo and today they proposed a visit to Niagara on the Lake, a lovely town not far from here. Unfortunately, NoL is in Canada, and US Citizens may not exit and re-enter our country without either a passport or secure driver's license. Our home state, Virginia, is rolling out the SDL as each of ours expires after its five-year term, although residents can request one sooner. Even so, neither of us have one, nor do we commonly travel with a passport, so no border crossing for us.

In the grand scheme of things, such security measures are neither surprising nor completely unreasonable, and it is really not a big deal; we simply made other plans. But still, how strange to stand by the side of a river in the land of the free with the knowledge that the opposite bank is off-limits. after traveling the world in my younger years, it is just not the sort of experience I associate with being American.

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