The Horse's Mouth

DRAT!

Take-Away Lesson:

ALWAYS, Always do your own research. Do not take the word of someone else... even if they are organizing whatever you are needing information about.

Story:

We drove Friday night to the big city where we would fly out for our trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, got settled in and off to sleep. Woke up early in the morning to get over to the airport and stood in line FOR.EVER. When we got to the front of the line, Pops handed the kind gal our passports and Bump's official birth certificate. She click click clicked away at her computer keyboard and then asked for Bump's passport. Uh, what passport? He is only 4 months old. All people leaving the country must have a passport, now - even to Mexico and Canada.

We told her what our travel person told us. As long as you have an official birth certificate with a raised seal that lists both parents and both parents are traveling with the infant with their passports, the infant does not need their own passport. I looked at the travel website that we were sent regarding our trip. This is the same information that was listed on their website.

Well, the airline check-in gal was not convinced and insisted we call our travel agency's emergency number. Pops got busy on that and I asked her if her computer had internet access so that I could have her pull up my email and click on the link to go to the website that had this information listed. She told me that, yes, she did have internet but she had to get all these people checked in and walked over to another computer at the counter and asked me to walk over the luggage scale. She put in her password and told me to go ahead and use the internet and find what I needed to. She proceeded to go back to her station and left me, with Bump on my shoulder, to check email and such on the airline's computer. (Let me tell you that I felt really silly as people were looking at me as if I was slacking on my "job" since I wasn't asking the next person to step forward so I could get them squared away to board the plane. But, uhhhh, there is this BABY on my shoulder and I have NO identification tags on me! And, yes, the TSA folks walked by and stared at me several times. But, strangely no one asked any questions!)

Well, in my searching I discovered that the travel company had removed the information that I read on either March 31 or April 1 about needing a birth certificate and in its place left a link to the government site regarding passports. The government site basically said that the above statement was accurate... for going to Mexico or Canada via land or sea. If you travel via air, every person must have a passport. Hmmmm... very interesting new information to us and a bit of a kink in the works for our trip. It takes how long to get a passport? That's what I thought... the trip will be long over by the time we'd have anything of the sort.

So, in complete dissolution, we headed home. Pops called all his co-workers that would be waiting for us in Cabo and filled them in on the bad news. They tried thinking of any options and it basically came down to needing a big boat to take us, or a looooong drive. So, Cabo and the warm sunshiny beaches of the Pacific will not be ours this week. We were looking forward to a bit of sun, warmth, and fun with a few of Pops' co-workers. That does not look like it is going to be happening. So, we are home today and for part of tomorrow (for Branch's birthday - she will be happy that we'll be able to hug and squeeze her on her special day!) and then we will be off to find somewhere to go spend some time together and get away. It sure won't be tropical weather, but time together is what we were hoping for.

Anyone have any FAST suggestions for some fun relaxing times in Oregon, Southern Washington or Northern California for two adults who are toting a baby with them?!?!