Well, R&R is over and I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for the silver bird to fly me to Kuwait.
R&R *was* great, even though I'm suffering from the painful separation from home a second time. Still, it was good for recharging my batteries, which I really needed.
In a nutshell, I had an awful voyage home (it took two days, I got violently ill when I got to Kuwait, slept very little and was miserably sick during the 16-hour flight home) but the following two weeks were great.
Spent a week with Terre near Taos in New Mexico, staying at a Bed & Breakfast and mainly chilling out. Rented a Mustang convertible for the drive around the high desert and did a lot of hiking, including a walk along the Rio Grande canyon and two climbs to 9k and 11k feet, the latter up to a small lake in the San Cristos Mountains.
During one hike (which climbed about 2,000 feet so you can imagine the huffing and puffing) a snow storm blew in and dropped about two inches of snow – it was awesome. I kept joking, “Please, what is this thing where waters falls from sky?”
Did some window shopping, of course, which was more me getting used to the material wealth of civilization again. Also ate in some nice restaurants, and had a gloriously tender melt-in-your-mouth elk steak, which summed up all that is wonderful about a civilized country.
Drove to Colorado one day to meet a gaming friend for lunch and dreamed about buying some land out west, where it is relatively cheap and isolated. Finally, in an odd coincidence, met up with Steve Hills, an old friend from College, who lives in a small trailer on Pueblo land across the street from the B&B.
The second half of the R&R was spent back in Kensington. It was pretty busy, visiting Mom of course, as well as seeing work friends, having a Perry Avenue party, then going to Baltimore for Mom’s 80th birthday party, followed by a poker night before doing last minute errands and packing for the trip back. On Tuesday morning, I managed to vote before rushing off to the airport and a slightly teary goodbye to the World (not too many tears though, being a guy and in uniform and all).
The plane got delayed for an hour on the tarmac, which sucked, but I did get to move up to first class (on the airlines’ dime) so that partially compensated. And I even met an old Navy guy on the plane, named Ken McGraw, whose son (a Colonel in the Army) just got back from Iraq. He’s a bit depressed about Iraq and argued we ought to just push the Iraqis out the door and let 'em sink or swim.
Nice last minute wireless internet access though, which is cool (especially as I'm sipping a nice cup of coffee) and is helping me mentally prepare for the long voyage back to Basrah.
Talk again after I get back,
Tim