Photoessay #246 - Passport panic

Very cold in Rockford today, the good news is the temperature is going up. Maybe into the 30s tomorrow.

My sister and mother leave on their Caribbean cruise in a little over two weeks. They spent some time today deciding on the special activities and trips they wanted to go on. And we registered for the trips online, paid for them, all is well. Started on the immigration paperwork. My sister has read everything twice.

But now, something new, your passport has to be good for six months AFTER the trip. My mother's passport expires in June. About six weeks off. She thought, I'll decide if I want to renew it when I come back. Made sense. But now, this passport is not good enough. The cruise people say they will not let her on the ship. They leave in two weeks. My mother's 83, it's just about zero degress in Rockford, it's Friday afternoon. What to do? Make an appt with the passport agency in Chicago? But that involves a trip to Chicago (90 miles away), not practical. My mother decides we should go to the main post office wayyyy on the other side of town. In the snow. But we blast out of here. First go to Walgren's to take another in a series of fetching passport pictures, then to the post office. I fill out a passport renewal application while we are waiting in line. Luckily there's a knowledgeable passport person who tells us that if we take the form we already filled out, pay the 'desperation, do everything' fee of $147 and send it Express Mail, "it will come back in time, it will" Which my mother does.

Whew, dodged that bullet, hope it works. It would have been very terrible for them to get to Fort Lauderdale and not be allowed on the ship. This has got to catch a lot of people....I'm exhausted.