Passport Adventures

This is how I felt last week regarding the passport application process.  Dr. Peds has planned a mini vacation to Voyageurs National Park in a few weeks.  He neglected to mention that we were going across the border into Canada for our accomodations on this mini vacation.  He thought I had a passport.  My passport expired in 1999.

He downloaded the application form and told me to fill it out immediately to get an expediated passport card (never mind that the expediated part cost twice as much as the actual passport).  He did this during my busiest week of the year.  I searched out all the information I needed and filled it out as quickly as I could and felt a little disgruntled.

On Monday Dr. Peds declared that it was “If-we-accomplish-nothing-else–we-are-getting-your-passport-day.”  He came home from work in the morning, after being on call all night.  We used my camera to take a passport photo, and gathered up all the paperwork we needed  and checked it twelve times over at least.  We headed to Walmart to get the passport photo printed on one of those quick instant machines.  Mr. TOF and I waited in the car in the rain since I hate Walmart. Dr. Peds went in and waited 45 minutes for a woman to finish printing 180 photographs out on the instant machine.  So much for instant.

By then, it was only 45 minutes  until I had to be back home to get ready to teach, and Dr. Peds remembered that he had a surprise meeting at the hospital.  So we got in a nasty argument about how we should accomplish getting through the DMV office in time for me to get back to teach, since I definitely needed to be present for the upcoming lessons.  The argument ended with skipping the DMV, dropping off Dr. Peds at his meeting so he wouldn’t be late, and me driving back home, arriving just in time to make lunch for Mr. TOF, and accomplishing pretty much nothing for the morning.

Tuesday we set off with better attitudes.  We gathered up all the paperwork and went right to the DMV.  It turned out they didn’t like my photograph, so they charged us $11.97 to take a worse one.  Then we mentioned that we needed expediated service for the passport card, and it turned out that even with expediated service, the card would arrive a week late.  Even if we had managed to get there the day before, the card still would have arrived a week late.

The only alternative to skipping the vacation (which I wholeheartedly considered at that point, to be sure) was driving to Minneapolis and applying for an expeediated passport at the federal office there.  We came home and spent 27 minutes navigating through the automated appointment system to set up an appointment for last Friday, which was the only day it would work for us to travel to Minneapolis.  After some difficulty, we procured childcare for the three eldest kidlets after school, and after watching The Banana’s school choir program at school on Friday morning, we set off in our blue minivan for the cities.  Dr. Peds drove.  I grouched.

Of course, after a week of solid rain, the day I was trapped in a car (oh how I hate traveling!) was sunny and beautiful!  The closer we got to those big cities I dread with great passion, the warmer and more-summer like it became.  The grass there was green!  The trees had leaves!  I was still trapped in a car.

In the end, after we ran a couple of errands and found a place to park in downtown Minneapolis (my husband is so awesome at city traffic) it was all OK.  I navigated all the crazy security to enter the federal building (talk about a lot of security and a lot of bullet proof glass!  My goodness!) and handed in my paperwork.  The workers were kind and not nearly as grumpy as your average DMV worker.  They took my check for a crazy large amount of money and told me they’d mail the card this week.  I walked across the street to meet Dr. Peds and Mr. TOF who were hanging out a coffee shop.  I ordered a big cookie.  We decided to leave the cities right away before traffic got heavy, since we knew everyone would be leaving at once because it was Memorial Day weekend.

We drove home.  I paid the babysitter more money, but I didn’t mind because she’s one of my favorite people, and I was grateful that we didn’t have a traffic jam or a traffic accident.  My little card is scheduled to arrive at the end of the week, and I will be set to travel to Canada.  Although, technically, the problem is more coming back to the U.S. than entering Canada.

During the course of the week we also procurred certified birth certificates for Mr. TOF and ordered them for YaYa, since for some reason we didn’t have certified copies.  Let me tell you, getting a certified birth certificate from North Dakota is a lot easier and cheaper than getting one from Minnesota, even though we live here!  It was more than three times more expensive for Mr. TOF!

I am so glad to have all that paperwork behind me.

I am hoping that this will be one amazing vacation.