Yesterday, (Monday) was a crazy day. We had made plans to go to Panama City on Wednesday so that we would be there in the morning on Thursday to meet with Mayra, our Attorney. She had emailed us to let us know we need to be there to sign paperwork to start the application process of our residency visa. At long last all the documents we’ve been working on gathering are all acceptable. They’ve been processed and now we can go To Panama City to meet with the Attorney and begin the official application process for our visa and then to California to prepare our container to be shipped to Panama. In the morning Scott said,”Why don’t we go ahead and try to get our trip to the States in while we’re at it.” Oh Boy, that’s gonna take some organizing….
All our friends and family have been asking all year, when we would make the trip back to the states. The trip back has been up in the air. The reason for the uncertainty is of course because of waiting for our visa application to be ready to submit and then there’s the fact that we have a crew of 7 men working for us. In order to plan to be away from the project Scott has to know that he can leave them plenty to do while he’s not there. Not only plenty to do, but also plenty of materials to do it with. We spent all day Sunday driving back and forth from Ivan, the supply store, with gravel and sand. We made 5 trips and got the gravel pretty well stocked up. Today is Inauguration Day in Panama. The newly elected president will take office today. So it’s an official holiday. None of our guys work today but again Scott will be getting his work site stocked up and ready for them to have enough materials to keep productive. He’ll be away from the job site for ten days and that also means we need to arrange for Payroll to take place while we’re away. We always pay on Saturday and our neighbor has kindly offered to help us with that. We’ll prepare all the envelopes with the proper amount of money for each employee and Allen will make sure they all get them on the two Saturdays we’re away. Of course we have to trust that they all show up to work while we’re away and work the hours we plan for.
Once we made the decision to fly back to California to deal with the shipment of our belongings a whole whirlwind of organizing began…first to deal with the employees and the continuation of work on the project, then the cat, finding a house sitter. Lucky us, we have such great neighbors who came by and said,”we’ll stay with your kitty”, what a relief to know he’s well taken care of. Booking a hotel in Panama City for Wed, Thurs & Fri. Deciding weather we would fly to the city or take the bus and what to do with our car, which was easy, Kris is great about letting us leave it at her house in David. Booking our flights to SFO and reserving a rental car and finding a hotel to stay in San Jose. Then to organize our shipment. Contacting the shipping company to set up the meeting at our storage units in San Jose and then finding a Storage place here in Panama for it to be delivered to once it gets here. Whew! Yesterday we got most of the organizing under control with the exception of booking our hotel in Ca. But this morning as I’m typing Scott just got that done.
We’ll only have a short time in California. Of course aside from dealing with our container we want to visit with people. Our families being the biggest priority. Its hard because there’s just no way for me to see all the people I’d like to see. If your reading this and you’re one of those who I don’t manage to fit in I’m so sorry to miss you, but I hope you’ll understand. Maybe I’ll park myself at a neutral spot and tell everyone to come by to say Hi! Who knows, CasCal sounds good!! Nothing set in stone my time will fly fast I’m sure! But right now we’re scurrying around getting all ready to meet with Mayra on Thursday morning at 7:30 at “Servicio Nacional de Migracion” in Tumba Muerto…hopefully a nice taxi driver will know just where that is. We also just got an email from our attorney letting us know we need to bring copies of our passports and 5 passport photos! Yikes! Where are we to do passport photos? Guess we will figure that out tomorrow on our way to the bus terminal. Let’s see, where have I put my ‘Tranqullo’? Must find it before I go tomorrow……Humph!
Let The Adventure "Continue"! 
Arrocha does carnet photos on the spot. They hit us with this last min, requirement too
i clicked to comment the same thing! i got extras when needed at arrocha. good luck!
Good luck and happy travels to you both!
Holly – We were able to get our photo’s and copies of all needed documents right outside of the Migracion Office. Many small booths set up right outside of the fence when we were there in January getting our Visa’s.
And there is also ATM machine.
Tranquillo pays off, now you have your answers..safe journey..
The best laid plans…. sheesh