Re-entering the United States

Palmyra Atoll is a U.S. territory, but it is still considered international travel so you are required to have a passport. On the last day on the island they put out a visa stamp for you to mark your passport. Nowadays I have been to countries where they no longer stamp your passport, so it was nice to get one that not many people in the world have.

Because the plane lands in a small airport, the custom officer actually comes onto the plane to check your credentials. No one can leave the plane until everyone has cleared. Gareth is from Great Britain and Francesco is from Italy, so that took little extra time. Some of the other teams were bringing back specimens which sends up a red flag even though they were all dead -- preserved or dried. They had all the appropriate paperwork for the specimens, so it didn't take too long to get the green light from customs to exit the plane and enter the U.S. We all received leis as we exited the plane, a nice touch.

On Monday I went the Stanford Blood Center to donate. It was my 120th whole blood donation. The person taking my medical history got a kick out of all the places I gave him that I had been to in the last 3 years. Argentina was no problem, but Zanzibar was a challenge. While people have heard of it, they don't know where it is located. Naturally, Palmyra Atoll was not in their database of places with and without malaria, so he had to get his supervisor to see if I could donate. They looked it up in Google.  She said since it was a U.S. territory he didn't even have to list it on the form. That was a bit disaappointing.