June 21, 2023
Out Front Street
Here’s another day that didn’t go as planned. I wake up with the intent to conduct an experiment. I want to take a ride up into the West Hills to test out how I do with it, and have another data point to discuss with my cardiologist Friday. I’ve been doing well for most of the last month, but then I haven’t done much that was particularly strenuous or challenging either. Better to try something harder and find out how it goes.
That’s not what happens with the day though. When I get back from coffee Rachael and I start talking about the passport situation, and our new knowledge that we won’t be able to go to Spain without renewing our passports first because we have to have three months of remaining eligibility after our intended return date. In other words, for our intended tour from mid-September to mid-December, our passports would need to be effective through next March. But they aren’t. They expire at the end of the year.
Our planned trip to Canada complicates our passport renewal problem because we need them with us to enter Canada and you have to give up your current passport when you apply for renewal. So we have three options, assuming getting to Spain is the priority: renew now, renew after we get back from Canada, or don’t go to Canada.
For that matter, we haven’t read up on passport requirements for entering Canada. For all we know, it’s possible we can’t get into Canada without renewing them first either.
Renewal through the normal method (mail in your application and expiring passport, and wait a couple of months for a new one to arrive in the mail) is a slow process, and not an option unless we scrap the trip to Canada for this summer. The only alternative is to get an appointment to apply in person at a passport center, which in our case is Seattle. You can’t apply for an appointment earlier than 14 days before your planned international travel date, and there’s no guarantee that you can even get an appointment.
So we decide that this is an urgent problem that we need to figure out now. If we can’t get an appointment, we need to know now so we still have time to mail the passports in and renew by the normal route. So we call the Passport Center. It’s a single number that applies to the entire country. You can’t, for example, call the Seattle directly and make an appointment.
So we call. After some trial and error we figure out the right responses on the automated system’s phone tree (1, 1, and 2) and get through the correct door. Once there, we are immediately told that unfortunately they can’t take our call now, and goodbye. Click.
We make six or seven different attempts over the next few hours, with the same response to all of them. This leads to interesting discussions about whether we should just scrap the Canada trip and mail the passports in now, or of how long we should keep trying to get an appointment before giving up.
By now it’s after noon, and the day is disappearing. I’ve changed into my cycling clothes and am pulling on my shoes when I give it one last try. I get through.
I have a very helpful discussion with the agent. The upshot is that we can’t make an appointment yet because we’re not within 14 days, but he thinks we should be able to get one when the time comes if we keep trying. Afterwards we rehash this and decide to move up our planned date for entering Canada to July 10th, which means we could try to get an appointment next Monday. That feels early enough so that if we can’t get an appointment we still have time to change our plans for the summer. In the meantime, we’ll make a cancellable booking for a hotel in Vancouver as our proof that we have travel plans.
So that’s the end of this topic until Monday morning. In the meantime, the day’s half-shot. We’re meeting Elizabeth for dinner at 5:30, so we both take off to fit in whatever is still possible. Rachael heads up into Washington Park on a walk, and I head for the riverfront on the bike.
I almost make it there, but am held up at the last by a freight train.
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I was thinking I’d take the usual loop south to the Sellwood Bridge and back, down the left bank of the Willamette and back the right. Waiting for the train though, I decide to start by biking north to the Fremont Bridge to stare across the river from there.
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I’m surprised when I get to the Fremont Bridge though. Over the past five years or so, this part of the waterfront has been rapidly transforming with the opening of one apartment or condo building after another pushing north into the industrial district. As it’s moved north, an attractive waterfront promenade has advanced with it. Today, I see that it’s extended considerably since I was here last. Of course I have to ride it to its end, and once I get there I decide to keep going and follow industrial Front Street to its very end, to the silicon wafer plant at the base of the Burlington Northern bridge.
Front Street isn’t an obvious choice for a bike ride, as for several miles I pass railroad switch yards, warehouses, steel mills and a petroleum tank farm - seeing the other side of what we bike past on Highway 30 on the way to Sauvie Island. I’ve only been out here once before though, and this seems like as good a day as any to have a second look.
Not much has changed over the last several years, and the second look is much as the first. I suspect it will be a few years before I repeat this one. At its end though it’s nice to get up close to the Burlington Northern bridge and get a long view back south long the river.
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According to one website there are 10 species in the Portland area!
10 months ago
10 months ago
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From there I turn back along Front Street, looking for a turnoff that will connect me to the highway so that I can continue north to the Saint Johns Bridge and bike back the other side of the river. I’ll save you trouble though: it’s not possible to get through until the railway overpass at Kittridge, a crappy and unsafe bridge to bike on. So I just kept riding on Front Street, turning the outing into a lazy, shortish OAB. Could be worse, and you see different things biking the other direction anyway.
Today's ride: 13 miles (21 km)
Total: 159 miles (256 km)
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10 months ago
10 months ago
I also have a passport card. They arrived a few days apart.
10 months ago
You do not need a US passport to cross into Canada at a land crossing. (You do need one if flying.) I'm a dual citizen, live in Abbotsford, BC and go through the Sumas, WA / Abbotsford, BC border crossing several times each week, usually on a bike. I cycled south an hour ago to pick up a package at the Sumas PO and stopped to speak to an officer on the Canadian side when going back home. (Many of the officers know me on sight, and this was one of them.)
She said, "Someone can bring proof of US citizenship, such as their birth certificate, plus photo ID, such as their drivers license, and they can be admitted. If they have documentation of their having sent their passport in for renewal, that would also be good. But, they do not need their actual passport at a land crossing." I cannot recall what, if any, documentation there might be when renewing a US passport. It's been a while since we had to renew ours.
I asked the officer if she could give me a reference to a page with this info at the CBSA website (Canadian Border Services Agency) but she either did not know where to find one, or knew that the info is not actually posted, because all she did was just repeat her little explanation.
If you wish, shoot me a note at mch2290 at gmail.com. I'm happy to ask more questions of them. It's a quick six mile ride each way and for a variety of reasons I do it often.
10 months ago