We finally slowed down our travels long enough to apply for and receive Global Entry and NEXUS, part of the federal government's Trusted Traveler Programs.
It was silly to have put it off as long as we did, since we live within a few miles of one of the interview locations.
We've already used Global Entry a couple of times returning from overseas trips to US airports, and we've used our NEXUS a few times as well. Yesterday, for example, we zipped past an estimated 45-minute wait Northbound at the Blaine Truck Crossing and entered immediately.
If we're heading east, we simply drive along Zero Avenue, one of the most boringly interesting roads in the area, since it's a straight two-lane road that runs literally alongside the Canada-U.S. border for quite some number of miles before connecting to slightly more northern roads on the western side of Abbotsford .
Zero Avenue is a hotbed of smuggling activities at night, if this article in a July/August 2010 issue of Canadian Geographic is to be believed, but a quiet road most days, punctuated only by the odd speed demon breaking the 60 kph (35 mph)speed limit by 50% or more.
All we have to do is scan the new U.S. Border Patrol Report in Blaine's weekly Northern Light newspaper to see for ourselves that it's not always the quiet country road we've come to enjoy.
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