New US Passports

Todd and Allan just got their passports in the mail last week. Last year, I applied for my new passport (to replace my expired one) and received it inside of 3 weeks. This year, the new rules whereby you now need a passport and not just a birth certificate to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders, forced my two boys to apply for one, too. They applied 5 weeks prior to our trip. Alas, the anticipated waiting time was more than double of what mine was, because of the huge increase in demand for passports, that this new law required. Projected arrival date (10 weeks from application)? 26 July. We got them in the mail on 30 July, not bad for government timelines!

Anyway, I opened up the envelopes and to my surprise, it was a completely different passport than the one I had! It was one of the new e-passports that the US recently started issuing, and the differences were dramatic.

For one, the entire passport had a theme to it-- a patriotic theme. Even the front page featured an eagle, the flag, and the Preamble to our Constitution (here's Allan's passport):



The front cover the usual passport introductory blurb, but rather than plain text, they were accompanied by old pictures from early American history, quotes, and even a handwritten portion of our national anthem:



And best of all, each individual page, where the visa stamps go, featured 2 things: The top had a famous quote from a famous American (from the early days of the Revolution to modern days of civil rights), and the pages itself were watermarked with pictures of Americana: the Liberty Bell and Declaration of Independence, majestic mountains and free-roaming buffalo, farmers tilling the land and ranchers roping cattle in the Old West, the Statue of Liberty, and Mount Rushmore, among other scenes:



These new passports are so neat! Just rifling through each of the pages provides something new and fascinating. Some group of people must've worked very hard to not only get this theme going, but design every last detail of it. The results are very impressive. Makes my passport look bland and boring... the only pictures in mine are state seals on the visa pages. Of course, I won't be due for a new one for another 9 years, so we'll see what the theme is by then, if a new one is even adopted.