Mass. Trip ’14

[pyesetz]

Yup, I drove the family to Massachusetts and back again.  First time since 2011.  Kid #1 still has her “G1” licence, so she was not able yet to assist with the driving.

The 2011 trip was dedicated to my deceased brother-in-law, so this trip should be about my deceased mother-in-law.  Initial dribbles from her estate paid for this trip (and have also put food on our table these past few months), but the bulk of the money hasn’t been released yet.  Damned lawyers!  The will is uncontested, so there’s no excuse for all these delays.

Oct. 23rd, day 1: Drive from Ontario to New York

(We ran into multiple traffic jams, so this drive took *twice* as long as Google Maps had estimated.)

Country Paws (St. Agatha ON, 10:55am).  Drop-off time at the dog kennel is 11am; I make it with a few minutes to spare.

Our house (11:30am).  Pack the car with things and family — and we’re off to the States!

US border (Lewiston NY).  40 minute wait, which is quite a bit longer than our recent average.  It seems most cars with Ontario plates are getting searched — but they waive ours through, perhaps in part because we have US passports.

Wegman’s (Amherst NY, 2:53pm).  $4 for a four-pack of pumpkin muffins on sale.  (At end of trip, one muffin was still uneaten.)

Tops (Amherst NY, 3:28pm).  $27.20 for groceries, mostly Halloween candy and snack foods that are on sale this week but won’t be next week when we stop back here on our way home.  Also included is a box of Cheez-Its, which is going to be the “theme snack food” for this trip.

Tops lottery vending machine.  Wifey buys a instant lottery ticket for $1, which wins $2!  She also buys a $2 Powerball ticket for the Oct. 25 drawing (it didn’t win anything).

New York Thruway rest area (6:15pm).  Withdraw $40 for US spending money.  M&T Bank charges me a $3 “withdrawal convenience fee”, while my own bank charges a $3 “foreign exchange convenience fee”, plus their exchange rate is poor, so it costs me CAD $52.75 to get USD $40 out of the ATM.  A good rate would have cost perhaps CAD $44.
      Wifey buys another lottery ticket for $1, which doesn’t win.

New York Thruway exit (New Hartford NY).  The toll collector says, “You know your headlight’s out?”  I thank him and tell him I didn’t know — but that sure explains why it’s been so difficult to drive tonight!

Olive Garden (New Hartford NY, 8:47pm).  $80.35 for dinner.  Everyone gets “endless bowl of pasta” except me.  I refer to it as the “endless wait for pasta” because that’s one of Olive Garden’s tricks for keeping down the number of bowls you actually get.
      After the meal, I tried to buy some gasoline, but my credit card was missing.  I drove back to Olive Garden to retrieve it.  The manager wanted me to show photo ID even though I had the receipt with the matching card number and surely the waitress can remember my face from a few minutes earlier.  Still, a lot less hassle than it could have been.

Sunoco (New Hartford NY, 9:10pm).  Buy $50 of gasoline.  Since 2011 it seems to have become much more common in New York to require entry of a zipcode in order to buy gasoline directly at the pump.  But Canadian postal codes are not “zipcodes”, so I have to go into the convenience store, guess how much gas I will need, and prepay for it — because I am a shifty foreigner whose address lacks the all-numeric zipcode of a trustworthy human being!

Comments

[shiver-raccoon.livejournal.com]

USD - isn't it easier and cheaper to get USD from your Canadian bank before you leave? I've done that at TDCT.

Zipcodes - I've heard the same problems in various RV forums. If you don't know how much gas you'll need, you can just leave your credit card in the store while you fill up. Alternately, you can call the credit card company and have them put a US zipcode on your card. I've also heard that you can take the 3 digits from your postal code, add "00" to pad to 5 digits, and use that. However, I've tried that (years ago) without success.

[pyesetz]

Last year I tried opening a "cross-border services" account with TD (which would give me an account at TD Bank USA and a very favourable exchange rate).  Although I told them I am a US citizen and must file form W-9, those stupid idiots sent me a copy of form W-8BEN which is for non-citizens only.  I think it is actually against the law for me to file that one.  Anyway, it has been so long now that I should probably just start over.

Withdrawing US$ before leaving Canada would require guessing in advance how much I would need, which for safety would need to be an overestimate, requiring me to hold leftover US cash for the next trip.  But as it turns out that I'm doing that anyway.

I think I complained about the zipcode issue back in 2011 and was told to use my old New Jersey zipcode of 08002.  But that didn't work one time when I tried it.  I should probably complain again because this issue is going to come up again during January's trip to Florida.

[shiver-raccoon.livejournal.com]

Florida in January? Nice! Too bad I can't tag along.