Kid, You Are Going Places

I got my passport in the mail today! The process was bizarre - go to AAA to take stone-faced photo, write an expensive check, hand over my birth certificate to a post office clerk, wait, wait, wait, wait some more. Ta-da! Little navy book that lets you go places. The visa pages of my passport are intense and wrought with raw USA pride. Each has a quote from an American monument or influential person - Lynden B. Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Flavor Flave. No, actually, I am kidding. Abraham Lincoln is not one of the individuals cited. That would be a bit of a stretch.

Additionally, the pages have muted illustrations of our great nation. I recognized a couple - Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty. However, there are some vague references that I am less familiar with. One page has cowboys herding steers through a craggy meadow. Another has a photo of a space shuttle orbiting the moon. Yet another has a picture of a bear eating a juicy-looking salmon. I can't help but think that these images might fall into two categories upon being viewed by foreign security personnel: dishonest and confusing. When you open up a US passport, you are getting a glimpse of America from a far-away land. If you've never been here and were using a passport as a point of reference, you might expect our rivers to be chock full o' obese bears and our valleys overrun by men in stirrup pants. Also, you might believe we own the moon...