Cutting it Close

Just over a week ago, when the USA's two matches against Japan in Texas and Utah were changed to one match against Canada in Toronto, U.S. goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart realized that her passport was expired. Whoops! Yes, you need a passport to travel to Canada. In the words of Forrest Gump..."It's this whole other country." Barnhart had a week to get a new one, but being the conscientious Stanford grad that she is, got right on it. Problem was, she couldn't get an appointment at the ridiculously busy San Francisco Passport office. When she finally got through to a living, breathing human, they said to call back 48 hours before her flight, which she did, and finally got an appointment. Problem was, after dropping off her paperwork, she couldn't get back to San Francisco from the South Bay Area to pick it up, so she hired a courier service to bring it to her. However, when the service went to pick it up the night before she was to travel to Canada, they couldn't get it. Paperwork snafu! Barnhart made calls, resent the paperwork and threatened the courier service with bodily harm (ok, Barnie would never do that). The next morning the service got the passport, drove it back down the peninsula and delivered it to Barnhart after FC Gold Pride training and just an hour before she was going to leave for the airport. Phew! Stressful? Yes, but Barnie made it to Canada, as you can see by the photo below. There is a silver lining. Barnhart said she really needed a new passport photo. That last one was like 10 years old...