So the border is closed, and you are on one side with your family on the other.

How are you going to get home? If it is a short term closing, I would say wait it out. Long term I think one is going to have to start looking for small "county" roads that the locals use day-in and day-out.

Many moons ago we tried an experiment like this in the National Guard. The test was to deploy enough folks to "close" down a single county. All that was really happening was we were watching the regular traffic go by our HMMWV (we weren't stopping any traffic), but being there was the "road block". Then later, a well known local guardsman was flown about in a Black Hawk pointing out all the "border crossings" missed by the map and all the places one could trespass on someone's property to cross said boundary.

At the time I thought a lack of field training budget combined with a state commander who had read too much Tom Clancy produced that training. Then things like Anthrax attacks, Avian Flu, and Swine Flu came about and the memory gained new meaning.

Hummmm, how to get from Calgary, Alberta to DFW, Texas on back roads. I am going to need a map.