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EL PASO - I'll keep this short, but we're on our way out of Texas (finally), and we cross the border tomorrow.
It has been a long, four-day, 2,000-mile, eight-state journey thus far that has included a couple of stops with family and a couple of stops in La Quintas across Texas.
The end is near, but we had a few loose ends to tie up in El Paso before we could leave Texas once and for all. By the way, after we drove through Odessa and before we reached El Paso, there exists about 250 miles of desolation. A couple of small town-gas station stops, a couple of mountain ranges and a lot of sand and brush. Nothing else. I hope I never need to drive through west Texas again. No offense to west Texans.
Our chief reason for stopping in El Paso was to visit the Border Patrol to interview for our SENTRI skip-the-border-crossing-lane pass. Our appointment was for 8 a.m., and we were staying about 10 miles from the Border Patrol building we were to meet at. Deciding to play it safe, we left around 7:15 a.m., and it was good that we did because we needed a little extra time to find our way around the Border Patrol compound.
Still, we got there about 20 minutes early, and thus began the waiting process. This is where the Border Patrol morphs into the DMV. But with shorter, slower moving lines.
We signed in at 8 a.m. and waited 30 minutes until I got summoned to meet with a Border Patrol officer. He went through my documents, took my fingerprints and photo and interviewed me. It took about 30 more minutes. Then Natalie had about a 15-minute interview - shorter due to the fact that our officer did not need to double up on some of the information.
He was nice enough, though he seemed a bit shocked that neither of us have ever been to Mexico before. He asked both of us several times about different cities in Mexico and if we'd ever been to them.
Then back to the waiting room for another five or so minutes to fork over almost $200 for the SENTRI passes (we were both approved). Then another short wait to get our car inspected. Our appointment was for 8 a.m.; we left at 10 a.m.
We got our first look across the border and our first Border Patrol experience. We're excited about crossing tomorrow, and our future ex-pat comrades are excited to receive us. We're going out for tacos tomorrow night with them!
This probably closes the book on pre-post EF'M. I have to imagine the next time I post, it will be from Hermosillo.
UPDATEApologies to anyone who was drawn into believing the below statement about VP Biden calling us. It was a joke playing on this gaffe.ORIGINAL POSTA big thank you to all of the well wishers from yesterday's big announcement. Natalie was flattered. In fact, we received a phone call from no one less than our illustrious veep, Joe Biden, himself who wanted to tell Natalie that her achievement was "a big effin deal."
But now we have to start looking forward to the next steps. And they are many.
We need to prep for pack-out by taking our own inventory of our stuff and then mark with different colored post-its to indicate which shipment the items are going. We also need to do a dry run of packing our car before the movers get here so we know what we can take.
Tiffy is going back to the groomer to get her desert-style haircut - short enough to keep her relatively cool, but long enough to protect her skin from the sun. Though Tiffy and I have discussed this, and we've both determined that from about 11 a.m. to about 5 p.m., we are just going to lay naked and sprawled on the floor to keep cool.
I also need to get a copy of Tiffy's immunization records while we ourselves still need to get our shots to go to Mexico.
I'm still finalizing our driving route to post, and we are in the middle of the application process for a SENTRI pass. We know my disdain for acronyms, but a brief round of applause for this clever, cool-sounding name. Though I'm pretty certain the Border Patrol was hell bent on using SENTRI or SENTRY for this pass, and then just decided what the letters would stand for after the fact. They came up with Secure Electronic Network for Travelers' Rapid Inspection, so yeah, it is kind of a long way of describing a border SmartPass. Still, I'm a fan of this acronym, though I'm a little skeptical that such a program is a good idea. I'll need to experience a border crossing, but it seems that in matters of entering the United States, we should all just accept the fact that it is going to be a hassle in the name of national security.
One last note on the SENTRI pass. There is a 66-page instruction manual on how to fill out the application. Filling out the application took me about 30 minutes as there are several steps, but 66 pages of instructions seemed a bit excessive. After all, our state department friends already in Hermosillo were able to sum up what we can expect life to be like there for two years in a 66-page welcome manual.
We also need to make our final purchases before pack-out, which includes a new television. If I'm going to be watching people I don't understand on TV, I would at least like it to be on a large flat screen instead of my "3D" TV that I bought right before I started my freshmen year of college. I call it "3D" because the screen is rounded out...do they even make TV sets like that anymore?
And yes, that is soccer...er...futbol on my TV screen. I confess I've been drawn to watching these games, or at least have the TV set to these games while I go about my business. I've been watching/listening to the games on InVision (not Telemundo as I errantly said last time) because I love listening to the excitement by the announcers. I don't care who wins, just as long as there are many goals scored because listening to the announcers celebrate every goal like the team just won the championship makes me smile. Sadly, most games have been 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1, which makes for a lot of down time between goals.
We also need to load up on other items such as peanut butter, dog treats, cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I am fearful of a world in Mexico in which all they sell is single ply as we've been warned that the quality is not the same. That, and I've seen on TV that Americans use more pounds of toilet paper per person than any other country. Rationalizing, I figure that is because we use more double ply than the rest of the world, but that is merely speculation.
So we still have a lot on our plate. Yeah, the hard stuff is over Natalie, but we'd be kidding ourselves to think that everything else will fall into place on its own.
