Now that Memorial Day has passed, we’re continuing with photos from our boating day this past Saturday with new friends Linda and Burt and their friends Claudette and Jay.
We had a busy morning today, finishing the documents for our passport renewals that we dropped off at the local FedEx store since today is the last day we’ll have a car. No words can express the relief of having our passport renewal applications in the mail today. It was quite a task to complete all the paperwork.
Fortunately, we’re using a company, CIBT, that states they can get the new passports back to us in the mail within ten days of their receipt of the package we sent today. Here is the cost, per person, through this company for the fees to process the passports quickly:
SERVICE AND PROCESSING FEES (per person for expedited service)
| Renew Passport | |
|---|---|
| CIBTvisas Service Fees | $499.00 |
| Government Agency Fees | $190.00 |
| UPS Next Day Air | $53.00 |
| Inbound Shipping Label | $57.00 |
| Passport Replacement Coverage | $43.00 |
| Fees Summary | $842.00 |
If we didn’t require expedited service, we could have applied directly to the US State Department for passport renewals, avoiding the $499.00 fee for each of us. This is the fourth passport we’ll have received during our over ten years of world travel: ten years, two years, and later four years, and now another ten-year passport.
We applied for and received the shorter-term additional passports of two and four years to enable us to mail in a passport when we needed visas for various countries to have a valid passport in our possession while the other was in the mail. We never wanted to be in a foreign country without a passport in our possession while another was being processed. For now, we aren’t ordering second passports for this purpose unless we see a need that we don’t foresee in the near future.
Today, Tom will pick up our friend Karen’s husband, Rich, at the Orlando airport at 6:00 pm. Karen traveled to Seattle from Minneapolis after her son Jack’s wedding to be with a friend going through cancer treatment. That’s just the kind of friend she is!
Tonight, Rich will have dinner with us and then spend the night. Tomorrow, he’ll drive back to their new home in Bradenton, and we’ll return to using the golf cart for all of our transportation. We’ll do fine with groceries delivered weekly from Kroger and two nights out per week for dinner. The closest village square is Brownwood Paddock Square which takes about 20 minutes to use the golf cart.
As it rolls into summer in Florida, which is in the Northern Hemisphere, it stays light a few minutes more each day until we reach the summer solstice on June 21. We plan to go to dinner early and return while it’s still light. For example, the sun sets tonight at 8:07 pm. This will work well for us. If we’re with people and don’t leave by 8:00 pm, we will be fine driving on the golf cart paths indicated on an app on my phone.
Other than Rich coming tonight and a get-together with readers next week, we are ready to start contacting readers who contacted us to get together. If you haven’t contacted us for a get-together, please feel free to contact us soon. We are trying to meet all the readers who’ve reached out who live in The Villages or nearby. We’ve been very busy so far, but we’re enjoying all the social time.
Many people approach us and are very friendly and welcoming. It reminds us of Jabula, although nothing will compare to Dawn, Leon, and David welcoming us two nights a week and all the wonderful friends we’ve made in the bush. Plus, we’re having so much fun hanging out with locals at the outdoor bars at many good restaurants.
That’s it for today, folks. We’ll be back with more photos tomorrow!
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, May 30, 2013:
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Nice pictures. It was such a fun day with beautiful weather and good comapny.
Burt, thanks for a memorable day!
Much Love,
Jess & Tom