The Photo

The adventure begins before the wheels of the plane leave the ground. After running through the mental list of critical items, I had felt pretty good when Audrey dropped me off at the airport. Despite a weighty duffel bag that was threatening to cost me extra money and a horrendous traffic jam that had me glancing at the car clock every 30 seconds, I made it with an hour to take off and I had the essentials: Wallet, wristwatch, sunglasses, passport, scrubs and tennies.

The sinking feeling came quickly when I swiped the passport under the scanner and it read. “Name Does Not Match Passenger.” Count this as the first time I was disappointed to see my wife’s face. With her smile staring back at me from the passport photo, I knew I was screwed.

Not wasting anytime, I called the owner of this document to see if she wanted it back. And to get her estimate on how quickly she could drive without killing anybody. With the clock ticking, she acted calm under pressure, found her way home, sped through the yellows, looked on the internet for the shortcut to avoid the hour long traffic jam we hit the first time, grabbed the right passport and pointed it for the airport once again. With the plane leaving at 5:30, and the handoff occurring at 5:23, I thought it almost futile to sprint with my shoes untied, laptop in armpit, leaving a trail of funny looks.

The gate people saw me running and I yelled my last name to them and they replied “Run!” which I was already doing. She scanned my ticket quickly then yelled “Run!” at me again as I took off down the ramp. I flopped into seat A18 out of breath, a few new gray hairs sprouting out of my dome. I put my wristwatch on, glance at the scruffy mug on my passport and smile, thinking of the better looking photo in the wrong passport I had been holding 5 minutes ago. Once again, I couldn’t do it without her. Ecuador here I come!

I also brought the wrong camera cord, so you will have to live with wordy updates until I can figure that out...Until then, here is a generic foto de Guayaquil taken from a place I've never been, looking at a place I've heard about.