Border Patrol

Since I last updated my self-involved monologue, my American travel companion and I traveled south to New Orleans. Then to Austin. Then to Roma. Then to Big Bend National Park. Where I am currently. With wifi. And what better to write about myself than when I am in of the top 50 places in the USA, as I am currently doing. Rather than, you know, hiking, or some shit.

I think that it would be fair to say that New Orleans happened to both Emma and myself. Not least of all because I woke up in my closet sitting up, 7 hours after I arrived there in the wee hours of the morning. Before putting myself back to sleep until 5 pm. While some of the night is a blur and some of the night is gone, I think that it would be fair to say that it was wild.

New Orleans

But that night in NOLA aside, our travels have been fairly drama free. That was until we were driving from Roma, TX to Big Bend (also in TX) parallel to the Mexican border and we ran into border patrol. Our conversations went something like this:

Emma “Good afternoon, officers.”

Officers “Good afternoon. Where are y’all from?”

Emma “Well, I’m from Seattle and she’s from NZ”

Officers “Is it alright if I just let my dog look around your vehicle?

Emma “Of course, Officer”

Officers “Are there any other people in the vehicle with you?”

Emma “No”

Officers “Are you carrying any narcotics with you?”

Emma “No”

Officers “Right. And what are you doing here?

Emma “We are on a road trip across the country. From Boston to Seattle, but we were just visiting a friend in Roma”

Officers “Another red flag… Well, my canine is trained to sniff out people and narcotics and has alerted me that this is a vehicle of interest”

Emma “Oh”

Me “Oh”

Emma “Ohk”

Me “Ohk”

Officers “And, I’m not going to lie, all I am hearing from you two is weed.”

Emma and I “Ok, sir. I appreciate that, sir”

Officers “Do you have anything in your car that might hurt my canine?”

Emma “No, sir. Only sheathed knives”

Officers “Would you mind please getting out of the vehicle and waiting on that bench over there?”

Emma and I “No, sir. Not at all, sir. We’ll just be over here, sir. Nice dog, by the way, sir. Very masculine.”

* * 15 minutes later after extensive dog sniffing and federal officer searching of our car * *

Officers “Do you have any wet clothes?”

Emma “Ah, yes. We actually just went swimming. You can see that our hair is still wet”

Officer “What about dirty laundry?”

Emma “Well funny you should ask actually…”

(We had decided the previous day that we were too lazy to do laundry)

Officer “Well alright then. I think my canine was smelling your laundry. You might want to get those washed and dried as soon as possible.”

Emma and I “Why thank you, officer. What sound advice, officer. Will do, officer. You have a nice day, officer. And thank you, for keeping America safe.”

Officer “Stay away from those tokers”

Texas

I am so glad that these great men are keeping America safe and making it great again, one vehicle search at a time.