A Clean Slate for All New Caribbean Adventures
Imagine if all your favorite memories were gone forever.
Erased.
That’s how I feel staring at the brand spanking new passport that came in the mail yesterday—its pages blank save for the first one which identifies it as belonging to me.
My last passport had been around the world so many times. It had been with me when I traveled to Hong Kong during the SARS outbreaks due to the amazing deals on offer. It had been with me for adventures in Germany, London, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Italy. It was safely back at camp when our jeep broke down surrounded by lions at 2am Christmas night near the Okavango Delta while on safari in Botswana. That old passport had stamps in it from South Africa, Peru, Japan, Poland, and many from South Korea where I used to travel for business. It had spent the night under the stars of both the Moroccan desert and High Atlas Mountains.
It had so many stamps in it, I had to send it off to have more pages added.
And that was all before Steve and I started Uncommon Caribbean.
From this, our favorite home region, it had multiple stamps from Mexico back when Tulum was still completely off the map. There were notes showing I had paid the exit fee to leave Trinidad and Tobago after visiting our dad. Handwritten dates recalled when I visited Barbados. There were stamps from St. Lucia, St. Maarten/St. Martin, and more on-sight adventures.
I didn’t realize it until it was too late and that old, beat-up passport had been relinquished to the U.S. Government that it held, all in one place, a complete history of the most exciting times in my life.
And now it’s gone.
Maybe it’s all the darkened skies and snow-filled streets I’ve endured here in Brooklyn recently that’s making me feel like reminiscing, but I’m actually not sad over the loss—not really.
The way I see it, I’ve got 20 whole government issued blank pages to fill with all new stamps—all new symbols of thrilling adventures!
It’s only good ’til 2021, so it’s time to get cracking!
Who’s with me!?
Related Posts
Should You Stack Rocks on Your Caribbean Hiking Adventures?
Oscar’s Caribbean Connection
