Did you know that its possible to travel internationally sans a valid passport? I experienced this first hand when my father and I traveled to Australia to visit family. We packed up and headed to Denver International Airport like any other trip, but when we we reached our exit for the airport, my dad noticed his passport was expired. Now my dad has never been the responsible type, I’m convinced that he really never aged past 22. But my whole family was still shocked when he said this. To get a passport renewed takes weeks but canceling our trip would cost us thousands, we all felt suck, like there was no right choice. So my dad made the call, he was going to try and travel on his passport and see how far we got. It seemed impossible and I had minimal hope. The thing I always overlooked though is that even though my dad makes risky moves and always seems to put himself in complex situations, he has an insane amount of good luck. Life is always on his side. He wins every contest he enters, always gets random money just when he needs it, and constantly ends up getting things for free. So would his luck help us out in this situation? We were sure about to find out.
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The first leg of the trip was only a flight from Denver to LA to get to our Sydney connection,the passport dilemma didn’t concern us. But time sure did. Our flight from Denver was 45 minuets delayed, leaving us with only a slim hour to get to the international terminal, through customs, and on our flight. We sprinted from baggage claim to the check in. Once we secured our tickets, we headed towards security and customs, it dawned on us that this could be the end of the trip. I was convinced my dad would get caught and honestly, I was a little pissed off at him for disregarding such an important thing. We passed through security with a breeze and approached customs to get our passports stamped, my stomach was in nervous knots. Our officer was an older woman who greeted us with a smile. I shakily handed her my ticket and passport, when she saw our departure time she realized we were racing against time to make our flight. The officer then quickly stamped my pass and stamped my dads not even checking if they were real or valid. She rushed us through and wished us a good trip, thats when I knew my dad’s luck was coming into play. We made it to our gate with no time to spare but I knew this was just another place we could be stopped and sent back. The Qantas flight attendant quickly grabbed our tickets and attempted to rush us on the a380, but she was stopped when the machine refused my dads cursed passport. After a few attempts she shrugged it off and sent us on our way. Time and luck was on our side after all. The 14 hour flight was full of sleep but worry for what could happen. We landed and faced our last challenge. The immigration gates. Nervous and motion sick, I wasn’t optimistic. Our immigration officer seemed stern and unforgiving. After going over my papers he came to my dads. Before he could even look at his passport, I threw up everywhere. The officer stamped my dads papers and instructed him to take care of me. We had made it across borders on luck and a bit a vomit.
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