Shoes on Ground - It's About Time, Part II

I haven't posted here since May, so I guess it's about time.

I'm back. That's the long and the short of it. Getting back home, however, was not the simple process it should have been. Talk about jumping through hoops. I felt like a circus lion.

Normally each leg of the trip would have been planned out by a professional and they'd just tell me when to get on the plane. This time it didn't work out exactly that way. I wound up having to make a lot of my own arrangements. There are two ways to fly over in theater: Space Blocked and Space-A (space available.) Space Blocked means you have a spot set aside on the flight and Space-A means you can ride if someone doesn't show up. Most of my trip I got to travel Space-A. Yay!

When I was finally set to fly back to the US, I had my seat Space Blocked for the October 18th. I would have arrived back in the US on the 18th and caught a plane from Baltimore to Norfolk (via Philly.) Unfortunately, my flight got pushed back almost 20 hours. That means a couple of tings. One, I decided to stay in the terminal instead of going through the hassle of traveling back to tent city. Not the most comfortable thing. Second, and most important, I missed my connection in Baltimore. Once I actually arrived in Baltimore, I was told that there were no flights to Norfolk on that particular airline until the next day. Right behind me was a departures list showing a flight on a different airline going direct to Norfolk in just an hour.

Long story short, I spoke to the wife, who told me to go ahead and put it on the card. We'd soak up the cost if the military decides not to pay for it.

I made it back into town, needing a shave and a shower, and still in my uniform. Susan picked me up and we headed up to a high school football game, just in time to see Katherine's marching band perform for half time. To top it off, our school won the game.

Anyway, I'm still getting settled back in.