Mexico to the USA—I Hope

So I have finished writing and publishing The Wild Side of Alaska, and was ready to return to the US. I had made my reservations to fly back to Seattle. I’m looking at my passport, and Oh my God; my passport has expired, to say nothing about my tourist card for Mexico was way overdue.

My first thought was to go immediately to the airport to see what they would say. Then I thought why call attention to it. Several times during the past my tourist’s card has been overdue without a problem, but never my passport.

I did go to the airport early in case of big problems, and it was a good thing I did. When Alaska airline looked at my tourist card, the first thing she asked was how long I had been in Mexico. I told her the truth, well a half truth, I had been there eight or nine months,  but then I added a little lie. I told her I had been in the hospital for several months, and couldn’t travel. That was when I had to go visit Immigration. The sweet, sweet man at Immigration said it wasn’t a problem, and he’d return in a while (in Mexico a while can mean, a few minutes, an hour, or tomorrow) shortly thereafter he returned with a pile of papers for me to sign, and then he told me, “You probably better not do this again, or you will have to pay a fine, and it won’t be this easy.”

Okay, I’m now on the plane and feeling good, but I do know I might have a huge problem entering the US, and my heart was still going pitter-pat. I calmly marched right up to Immigrations, handed him my passport, and again he asked  how long I had been gone, and why my passport had expired. So I lied again and told him the same story. At that point, he called a supervisor over and retold my story. The supervisor just gave a quick nod of his head, and my old passport was stamped.

AND I RETURNED TO THE USA.