Back In Maryland

We had a great time in NC and did some work on her house, fixing the walls in her dining room and my SIL and I installing a new storm door on the front of her house. Our daughter Jess and her family left on Easter Sunday and my oldest daughter and her family left on Thursday. From a house full of 12 people it was just the three of us for the end of last week. And of course the two dogs.

We left Danielle's house on Saturday and we are back a my sister's in Maryland. We had a nice Sunday dinner with my Mom at the senior facility and she was was pretty much all there, a real blessing indeed. We have some work to do over the next few days getting the rest of Mom's finances in order, back to Syracuse on Wednesday.

Inaugural Parade

We're visiting my sister and her husband in Maryland on our way to North Carolna to stay with our daughter. Had a good trip from NY with just a few glitches and enjoyed a great dinner last night with them and my niece and nephews. Found out that my oldest grandnephew will be marching in Trump's inaugural parade next week. He is so excited. Everyone in his family (my sister and her husband of course) will be there as Trump walks from the Capitol to the White House.

He and his brother are such great kids. Their mom home schools them and they are quite the pair; these young men are very, very smart.

We leave for NC this morning.

Home Again

We got home last night at the stroke of midnight. We left Capt Carteret (about a 20 minute drive below Camp Lejeune)at 0940 yesterday and drove our girl back to Fayetteville. Left Fayetteville shortly before 1300 so it was a marathon drive day for me. Finally hit the sack about 0130 this morning.

There is nothing like your own sweet bed.
Well, almost nothing.

Saw one single, solitary Hillary *spit* lawn poster the entire week we spent in North Carolina.
This is it.

No, really, I saw scads of Trump posters but just one for Hillary the entire week. Heh.

Fayettevile, NC

We've spent the week house hunting with our daughter in Cumberland and Moore Counties. It's a great way to get lost in a hurry, thank God for GPS. We see some really beautiful homes here as well as some not so nice, but lots and lots of brick which I love.She has about three favorites thus far in her price range. She starts her new job in a few weeks and we're waiting to hear when she starts her  assignment in the Kentucky National Guard.

In our travels we've learned a lot about the area, especially the wear and tear that artillery imposes on a house. Cracks in the walls are very common in homes within a two mile radius of the artillery range at Bragg. It's the sound of freedom ringing throughout the structure.

Our hosts, a retired Army Lt. Colonel and his lovely wife, are simply the most gracious people on the planet. This is the third time we have stayed with them over the past seven years, ever since our daughter was first stationed at Bragg. We met them when the Army sent him to comptroller's school at Syracuse University, they attended our church and my wife taught their young boys in Sunday school. That has to be at least fifteen years ago.

Their twins are now juniors in college, their oldest son just graduated and left a few weeks ago for Ft. Leonard Wood as a brand new 2nd Lt.

The weather has held up nicely, but this morning (it's about 0830) we still have a downpour which has lasted all night so we may have to dampen our efforts to locate a suitable dwelling for our girl. Maybe we'll spend some time in Bragg's excellent PX today. 

I see that all this rain caused an enormous sinkhole to open up on an access road to Fort Bragg.

Yikes!

On Vacay

I am blogging from beautiful southern Maryland, St. Mary's county near Leonardtown, staying with my sister and her husband.  We will celebrate his 70th birthday this week. Then on Monday the wife and I are will continue on our victory tour to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we will join our daughter in celebrating her terminal leave from the  Army. Yes, our Soldier Girl has had enough of the Big Army and has taken a civilian job with a DoD contractor serving the Little Army, a  JSOC unit at Fort Bragg. She has also joined the Kentucky National Guard, 20th Special Forces Group. She still wants to serve.

We then journey east to Cape Carteret  to stay with some friends near Emerald Island. From there it's homeward bound where I will yet ponder on compete retirement. After 42 years in the business, it's getting old.

Raquette Lake

We're going away for a little bit to a beautiful upstate location, Raquette Lake, in the Adirondacks. My daughter and her husband have rented a cottage on the lake and have invited us to stay with them.  We did this last year and will stay a little longer this week.

Yes, there is fishing. Our SIL's extended family has vacationed there for decades. They have an annual fishing derby every year.

Last summer our daughter won the derby (she landed a 16.25" trout) and the right to keep the cheesy award plaque for the past year. She will fight to retain the title. I wasn't even an honorable mention.

Say what you will about NY, it is a gorgeous state - the Adirondacks are a treasure.

Just try to ignore the thieving politicians for a few days, if you can.


See you later.

Texas is Gorgeous!

Springtime in Texas is truly something else. We got into San Anglo late Tuesday night, rested up Wednesday and then drove to San Antonio on Thursday. We got there in the midst of their annual fiesta celebrating another celebration called the Battle of the Flowers. It's a gigantic parade with vendors, thousands and thousands of people everywhere, bands, restaurants and of course the Alamo. And the food. Good grief.

The San Antonio River Walk is extraordinary. Our favorite restaurant is a place called Boudro's. On Thursday I had their Shrimp and Grits which was outstanding... and the best bread pudding evah. I had steak the next night.

Boudro's is on the right bank of the canal.

We went to a dueling piano bar called Howl at the Moon that night. The pianists put on quite a show. The next day was more shopping and gawking. My pins aren't the best since my knees gave out and even with the replacements, to walk as much as I did those two days was quite a chore.

We left San Antonio on Saturday and stopped at Fredericksburg on the way back to San Angelo. The girls went shopping while my son-in-law Wayne, my daughter's boyfriend, Rick, and I went to the Pacific War Museum. Adm. Nimitz is from Fredericksburg and there are three museums that cover his life and WWII.  We just saw the Pacific War Museum but it was extremely interesting.

We also stopped at the Wildseed Farms and saw acres and acres of red poppies and bought some flower seeds. Now if the deer will only let them grow.

Red poppies almost as far as the eye could see. It went on for several hundred yards beyond the camera range. They had all sorts of beautiful garden plants.

We went to church on Sunday morning and afterwards, off we went to the gun range. It's Texas, doncha know.

Danielle bought her Sig Sauer and her Glock. Her boyfriend, Rick, is also an E6 and a big Sig Sauer guy, he had five of them. I shot them all. It was like 9mm heaven. Okay, he also had a Sig .45 1911 which I adored (got me thinking about another pistol acquisition!).  Another Sgt. from their unit met us at the range and brought his collection of firearms with him.Throw in a shotgun, an AR15, a WWII M1 Garand (made in 1944), a 22 cal. MP5 and another 22 cal. single action cowboy revolver and my day was complete.

 Rick made his own steel plate targets; goes "ping" when ya hit 'em and the 6" plate dances.

Unfortunately I started a head cold Monday night and by Tuesday night it was in full bloom. We left Wednesday morning at 0436 and the day was a blur. Little sleep for almost a week and the cold meds kept me groggy. Then three flights to get home fraught with delays because of bad weather. We got home at 1800 and I dropped onto the couch at 1830; woke up at 2130. Back to bed at 2330. Felt better this morning.

It was a truly great vacation. The weather was great, mid to upper 80's every day and it only rained at night. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Just beautiful. We got back to dreary Syracuse - clouds and low 50's. Had to put my sweats back on this morning after a week of shorts and t-shirts.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Danielle is leaving the Army next January and is trying to join a National Guard unit in Kentucky. Rick is also pondering whether or not he will stay. They are both Arab linguists, their MOS is no longer in demand (actually overstaffed in the Army's estimation) and positions are being cut. From what they are going through, it appears that the Army is trying to get rid of them. Both Danielle and Rick have 8 years of service with two deployments to Afghanistan apiece. Rick has a Purple Heart. These are the people you'd think the Army wants to keep.

Going On Vacation

It's been a rough year. The wife and I are finally going to take a break. A major IT project (replacing our PRMS, converting/mapping the legacy data, etc.) kept me hopping, a daughter getting married next month kept us both running and my soon-to-be scheduled knee replacement surgery after Thanksgiving ... well as I said, it's been quite a year.

We are leaving for Maryland tomorrow morning to stay with my sister and her husband for a few days and then to Fort Bragg to welcome home our daughter. It's not chiseled in stone, but she is scheduled to arrive at Pope AFB next Tuesday; right now she is still at Bagram Airfield but should be on her way to Manas AFB later today. We hope and pray this is her last deployment.

I thank God for His faithful care of our girl and for placing idiots and saints around her while she is so far away. I think Him for the idiots because He wants to grow her in an area of need that she inherited from me; we are both patience-challenged. And I thank him for the saints; for those soldiers who got her through the rough times, many thanks to her First Sarge. I won't elaborate here - it's just been very hard for her the past few months. Skyping from afar can only help so much and we are indebted to the men and women who loved and supported her.

I haven't taken any vacation this year and I am really looking forward to this. We'll take my wife's new RAV4 to save gas and pack it with stuff that our daughter can use as she will be renting a house when she returns to Bragg. As an E6 she now gets a basic housing allowance and doesn't have to pay $320 a month for the crap served at the DFAC. She Skyped us this morning and was pissed about some "political BS" that delayed her homecoming. I imagine it involved the phony government shutdown that put a cramp in services but allows Obama unlimited golf.

I've pre-posted a few things I found interesting/amusing.
Hope you all are well.

My badass girl, she's acomin' home!