Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Dakota Is The Key

Yesterday, we went to the United States to renew my passport. My passport has been expired for 6 years (and an odd number of days), plus I have been married and had a name change in my absence. To top it all off, I haven't been to the states since grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary in July of '09.

So when the very big, African American border guard took one look at my passport and asked us to come inside, I wasn't surprised. When they had us empty our pockets, looked through Jesse's wallet and my purse and searched the car, I still wasn't surprised.

What did surprise me was when they started apologizing. They didn't ever come out and say, "I'm sorry." It was more like, "You'll soon be on your way... we just have our protocols, etc., etc." "Well, it's just that with your passport being so outdated, we simply have to verify who you are." They started making little jokes and we all laughed together. It was awesome. :-)

The last thing they had me do was fill out a card declaring if we had any tobacco (no), fruits or vegetables (no), bringing anything down to sell (no), firearms or weapons (no), money over x number of dollars (no) and our destination, which I wrote down as "Minot, SD."

Now, there were two border guards and my husband both peering over my head as I wrote that. No one said anything. No one even noticed. It wasn't until we were back in our car and on our merry way that I said, "South Dakota, eh?" and my husband looked at me strangely and said, "We're not going to see Mount Rushmore today." Haha!


Ah! Minot, South Dakota, you exist, even if just in my mind.

2 comments:

Nila said...

Forgive me if this doubles up, but I don't think I was successful the first time around as I didn't realize the google window was bigger and it was asking for me to sign in.

Anyway, was your trip successful in the way of passport acquisition or at least applying and your shopping?

Naomi T. said...

Yes, our trip was successful in every way. :) I bought the clothes I wanted to and we didn't spend as much money as we had anticipated. It was a great trip!!