My new passport just arrived!

[SheilaT]

Took less than a month! I wrote the check for it on March 12, mailed in the application that day. I am impressed. It's possible it took such a short time because I could turn in an expired passport, so they didn't have to verify my citizenship, but still.

Don't have any major out of country trips planned, but I'll be in Tucson next week and plan to go down to Nogales. The last time I went there a couple of years ago the border agent as I returned clearly wasn't crazy about my not having a passport with me, but I just stayed dumb and happy. It helps that my particular first and last name is unique, and whatever he was researching about me on his computer clearly showed I wasn't some sort of undesirable.

[Suich]

1. Did you get your expired passport back?

[SheilaT]

4. Not yet. It will be arriving separately.

I also paid the fee for the Passport Card, which is good The U.S. Passport Card to and from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, plus Bermuda. That will likewise arrive in a separate mailing, hopefully quite soon. I will carry that with me at all times, and the passport itself I'll use only when travelling other places.

I was last out of the country and needing a passport, in 2001, so it's been a long time. I've been to Canada and Mexico a couple of times, but nowhere else. I had gotten my last passport in 2001, so I'd been without a current one for four years. Simple inertia kept me from getting it replaced. Not having any trips abroad planned just made it seem like a bit of a hassle.

I will say, that every time I've gotten a passport, and this is my fourth, it's processed far faster than I expect.

[mnhtnbb]

2. I have kept a valid passport since I got my first one more than 30 years ago.

You never know when you'll want to take a trip or get out of town, fast!

[olddots]

3. I got a pass port the day Runny Raygun became king