Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver

Checking in for the flight, the Canadian airline rep for Air China looked inside my passport and asked where I was going.

"Mongolia."

She flipped a couple pages of my passport and asked: "Where is your visa?"

"U.S. citizens don't need Mongolian visas." At least, they didn't last year. I hope that hasn't changed. Maybe should've checked on that.

Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver

Passed through downtown Vancouver on a Saturday night: the city is populated with nothing but stylish twenty-something-year-olds. Some French speakers.

Canada, Saskatchewan, Moose Jaw

Moose Jaw is famous around the world because it is named “Moose Jaw.”

U.S.A., North Dakota

I've been through Regina. I might have gotten a speeding ticket in Regina.

Canada is mildly different from here, but at least it is different.

U.S.A., North Dakota

The American border guards shoot anyone who tries to escape from the Land of Freedom.

U.S.A., North Dakota

I have been to Canada on several memorable occasions. You know, it was funny, how as young kids in North Dakota, we thought of ourselves as living at the edge of the world, because the US map just ends at the border, and Canada, if anything, was that great unmapped space that you would have to drive through to get to Alaska.