The radio just had this travel advisory: I-89 is shut down in both directions at the border crossing in Highgate Springs. People on the Canadian side aren't being allowed to enter the US and people on the US side are having to leave the interstate before getting to the border.
Why? Because of a 'suspicious-looking package.'
Skeptic I am, it's hard to believe that anyone would bother with a small Vermont border crossing.
The fact that we are a border-state has raised my consciousness... but not because of fear on my part. One hundred miles south of the border on I-91 the Department of Homeland Security put up a checkpoint. Senator Leahy has protested against it and when he asked Michael Chertoff about its permanency, Chertoff said it was just temporary. Leahy shot back: then why were $8M put into the budget to set up a permanent checkpoint?
An Episcopalian, who adopted a daughter from China, said when the checkpoint was last operating (it hasn't for two years), they were routinely stopped.
So I am not convinced that this checkpoint does all that much, even if they have caught drug dealers. (My first time being summoned for federal jury duty, I made it as far as the first seating for a jury than involved a Québecois truck driver who had gotten caught at the border with 20 lbs of cocaine hidden in a bunch of golf bags inside the 18 wheeler. He maintained that he had picked up the container part of the truck and didn't know what was in it. I think I got booted from the jury because I am clergy and fluent in French.)
Meanwhile, I can only imagine the confusion at the border today and am thankful I am not trying to get into Canada.
In the time it has taken for me to write this, the state police have decided to reopen the highway.
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