Have you ever thought about which is the lesser of two evils… the red-eye flight on which you spend 7 – 8 hours painfully exhausted but unable to sleep, or is it less evil to be wide awake and giving up an entire day to fly across the Atlantic Ocean or to some other long-distance destination?

We launched One Road at a Time on October 14, 2012 and as the calendar pages keep turning, we find ourselves approaching six years live and taking a few minutes to commemorate and reflect on the roads well-traveled.

Once upon a time (because all good stories start with these four words) two Portuguese residency permits found their way to the United States, here’s their tale.

It seemed as if our flight was never going to leave Porto as we waited – and waited – to board the airplane.  Scheduled to leave at 11:30 a.m. we saw the flight crew board the plane at 10:50 a.m. and we knew there was no way.  And, 30 minutes later we were still waiting.  Finally, we taxied down the runway at 12:30 p.m. and off we flew toward the United States.  We were heading home, ahead of schedule, but for a very good reason.

When the pilot announces that all crew members should stop serving and buckle up, you know it can’t be good. On the behalf of all those who, like me, can’t accurately describe the depth of how much I hate to fly, I’d like to thank the pharmaceutical companies for the invention of Valium.  It’s a game changer.

So, wouldn’t you know it?!  Cause and effect.  It worked!  I wrote a post yesterday explaining why we were still waiting and first thing this morning, we got the call.  Dina, from the Portugal Consulate, called us at 8:15 this morning and said, “Good morning, Abi, I want to start your day with good news.”  Whoop!

I’ve been putting off writing this post because it is a post I do not particularly want to write because I keep thinking, maybe tomorrow.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll get the long-awaited good news from the Portugal Consulate. But, then I thought, maybe if I write the post it will cause it to happen.  Cause and effect.

The logistics of leaving.  It’s an interesting situation in which we find ourselves as we continue to wait, wait, and wait a bit more for our Portugal visas to come through.

“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…” – Sun Tzu

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”  Walt Disney

With 30 minutes to spare, we ordered our standard Starbucks, Americana and Chai Latte, and sat down to catch our breath and sip the hot steamy goodness.  As we sat and sipped, we casually browsed our paperwork and quickly realized we had forgotten probably the most important piece of the puzzle, our passports.  All we could do was slap a face palm and laugh. For two people who are ridiculously organized, to the point of obsession at times, how in the hell did we forget our passports?