The great passport adventure

After much trial and tribulation, Graig and I turned in our passport applications yesterday! Here's the story...

I don't know why Ridge Publishing shows up way in the boonies; I typed in the address three times and it still didn't fix it. It should be MUCH closer to the other green points, just west of the Provo post office.

Monday. 2 p.m. Graig calls me wanting to go to the travel office in the basement of the administration building and get passport pictures. I tell him I'm busy studying and I'd rather do it all after we get out of class at 4. He argues a little but not very hard. I see him in Mission Prep at 3, and as soon as class lets out we walk to the building and get our photos.

Graig filling out some last-minute details on his passport application

After we pay for our pictures, we gather our things and head to the post office in the basement of the Wilkinson Student Center. The lady at the desk says, "I'm sorry, we don't accept passport applications here. You'll have to go to the Provo post office on 95 West 100 South." We thank the lady and step outside.

I check my watch. It's about 4:10. I know that most government offices close at 5 and start trying to calculate whether Graig and I could get to the Provo post office before it closes.

"Isn't 100 South near the library?" Graig asks, apparently thinking along the same lines. "How far away is the Provo Library?"

"Not too far. It's only a few blocks away from campus," I tell him. "We might as well try to make it to the post office."

... Long story short, the Provo Library is NOT "only a few blocks away from campus," it's about THIRTEEN blocks away from campus. (Or, at least, it was via the route we took that day.) And the Provo Post Office is about seven blocks beyond that, right by the construction on the Provo Tabernacle. By the time we made it to the post office, it was around 5:10. I told Graig to pray that the post office would close late that day as we walked up to the door.

OPEN UNTIL 5:30 MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, the sign on the door read. Graig and I high-fived and went in. A second sign said, PASSPORTS: GO TO ROOM 2. We found Room 2, but on the door was yet another sign: PASSPORT APPLICATIONS NOT ACCEPTED AFTER 4:00.

Well. I hadn't just dragged my brother one hour and twenty city blocks to take "no" for an answer. I decided to see how serious the post office was about this rule, so I opened the door to Room 2. Immediately, the woman behind the desk yelled at me, "We closed an hour ago!" so I quickly shut the door and turned around with Graig on my heels.

We became more and more hungry as we began the long walk home. I remembered there was a Denny's Diner right next to Wyview on Freedom Boulevard, and we determined to stop and eat when we got there. Graigry had been doing all this walking in the hot sun in his black suit (we had to be in missionary attire for our photos), and he got really tired about three quarters of the way home. Whenever he thought he couldn't take another step, he would say aloud, "There are unlimited pancakes at Denny's. Think of Denny's. We're going to Denny's."

By the time we got to Denny's at 5:50ish, Graig was so happy he paid for both of our meals. I paid for dessert. The delicious food restored our good humor and we decided to go back to the post office the next morning when neither of us had class. Then we returned to our respective apartment complexes for the night.

Tuesday. 10 a.m. Graig and I meet on campus and begin walking to the Provo post office again. (This time, we left campus via the BYU tennis courts and Brick Oven, which was MUCH faster than the way we went before.) We make it to the post office at 10:50ish, well before the 4:00 deadline, and get in line. We then proceed to amuse ourselves for the next 20 minutes by playing games on our phones. When we're second and third in line, we stop that and start looking around, reading the posters on the walls. One poster happens to be a list of required materials for a passport application, and Graig and I realize...

We forgot to bring photocopies of our IDs! We have everything else: proof of U.S. citizenship, our filled-out applications, our original IDs, money - everything! Everything EXCEPT the PHOTOCOPIES of our IDs. Graig glances around the room and says, "I don't see a copy machine in here. Maybe there's one in the main area."

So we leave the line and wander out into the small lobby, looking for any indication that we might be able to get photocopies at the post office. There is none, so Graig pulls out his phone and Googles copy places.

"I've got one. Ridge Printing. It's only two blocks away," he said, and we left the post office, expecting to be back with our photocopies in 30 minutes tops. Unfortunately, when we got to Ridge Printing, we realized that's all it was - a print publishing shop. No photocopies. Graig got back on his phone.

"I found another one. We ought to be able to get photocopies from it. It's about three blocks from here."

Again, Graig led the way. We followed his Google Maps app to a slew of different auto shops, where we discovered that the copy place listed on Google didn't actually exist anymore. Again, Graig turned to his phone.

"Finally, here's a good one! There's an OfficeMax about five blocks from here. We can be 99 percent sure it exists and we can get copies from it!"

So we walked until we reached the freeway overpass, where a sign reading SIDEWALK CLOSED prompted me to stop. "I'm going to ask the people in one of these auto places where the nearest copy place is. I don't want to go over that," I said. So we stopped at one of the three auto places on that street corner and asked a man for directions.

"There's an OfficeMax and a Staples just over the overpass. You can't miss it," he said. I don't think he realized we were walking.

SO. It seemed there was nothing for it. Graig and I ignored the SIDEWALK CLOSED sign and hurried across that bridge, walking as close to the railing as we could while cars whizzed by us at 40 miles per hour. I've never been so happy to see an OfficeMax in my life. We went in, got our copies, walked out and decided we were NOT going to cross that overpass again if we could help it. Luckily, an alternative in the form of a UTA bus appeared in the distance and we spotted a stop right across the street. Graig paid for us both (I don't carry cash) and we got transfer tickets so we could catch the bus back to campus after we turned in our applications.

Five minutes later, we got off the bus and walked back to the Provo post office. It was about 11:40 at this point, and I said to Graig as we neared the front doors, "You know, it'd be just our luck if the passport guy took his lunch break right now."

I should have found some wood to knock on before we walked back to Room 2, because as soon as we opened the door to Room 2, the passport guy called to us, "Sorry, I'm about to go on lunch break. I'm only going to help the rest of the people that are in line right now. Come back at 1:30."

I don't think either of us even replied. We just turned and walked away. I started verbally complaining. "I can't believe this. We can't come back at 1:30; I have work and you have class. I guess we're going to have to come back here again, and I really don't want to."

The good thing about this public rant is one of the post people working at the main desk overheard me and called to us, "You know you can turn in passport applications at the county building on 100 East Center Street, right?"

No. No, we had not known that. I saw a faint glimmer of hope. "Thank you!"

The county building was only about three blocks from the post office. We quickly found the place we needed to go and the person we needed to talk to. We didn't even have to wait in line! Graig gave her all his application materials first, and the county lady said it looked good.

"That'll be $170 with the expedite fee," she said, but as Graig pulled out his card, she added, "I'm sorry, I can only accept checks."

IT'S A DANG GOOD THING I HAD BROUGHT MY CHECKBOOK, OR WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO COME BACK FOR PASSPORTS: TAKE THREE! (Thank you, still small voice that told me I might need it!)

I paid for Graig just as Graig's phone rang. He answered. "Hi Mom. No, we haven't turned in our applications yet. Long story. We're actually turning them in right now. Can I call you back?"

I turned in my application and fee and we left, feeling accomplished. Graig called Mom back just as we walked out into the sunshine. "Hi Mom - Oh! We're running!"

(I had just spotted the bus bearing down on a nearby stop and was booking it. I really wanted to be on this bus; by now it was 12:30ish and I was late for work.) We made it onto the bus and rode it back to campus. Graig called Mom again on the bus and told her the whole story.

I sure hope turning in my visa application won't be this crazy, although looking back on it, it was fun to wander the streets of Provo for hours with my brother and everything worked out. I think the buses in particular was God's way of cutting us a bit of a break. :)

Graig and I saw these fun signs while on our walking tour of Provo.