The end of an era

After much deliberation, I have decided that I will discontinue this travel blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed posting about my adventures over the last three years. I've felt closer to my family and friends since starting this blog, it's been a great way for them to remain a part of my life and me a part of theirs through comments and the numerous emails spurred by blog posts. With my career change however, I've decided that this much transparency is no longer appropriate. Not that I post about work things very often, but I don't want to be the one who provides pieces of a seemingly innocent puzzle that produces a potentially harmful "big picture" (either to the mission or to myself). And for all you conspiracy-theorists out there. . . NO, the military did not tell me I could no longer do this blog!

And so it is with somewhat reluctant hands that I type this last post. It's been a great learning experience for me on many levels- writing, photography, societal dynamics, website organization, photo-journaling, etc. I hope that I will be able to pick up this hobby again at a later point, perhaps in a different format or focus. I will leave this web address active for a while longer until I decide what I want to do with it. It always amazes me to see the page load counter climb as folks check in to see what I've done or have to say (it's currently over 28,000)! Thanks for everyone who has been checking in on my adventures and providing support along the way!

The grand, nostalgic tour!

It's taken a while, but I'm finally getting around to finishing the tour of my new place with y'all! For a long time, I've wanted to get some of my photos developed onto canvas as wall art, but up until now the walls of my residences have been a mish-mash of my photos in random frames. I got them all done through a website called Canvas Love. I had gone through them previously for a print of a surfboard fence I had taken in Maui and was very happy with the finished product, so I decided to do the rest of my collection from them.

This is the view of my living room from the dining/kitchen area. I love my new furniture- this sofa & love seat represent the first "set" of living room furniture I've ever owned!

The close-ups of the canvas prints don't look great in these pics because the flash from the camera reflects off of them, but you get the gist. Although you can't really see her in this picture of the print, that speck on the road is Suzanne on her motorcycle! I took this pic of her when she, David and I made a weekend riding trip out to Ouray, CO last summer. I felt like this was the perfect representation of all the great memories I have of riding out in Colorado; where my love affair with two wheels began. That perfectly smooth, open highway winding into the mountains with Suzanne riding on it almost makes me feel the road rolling out under me as I look at.

The prints over the sofa are (clockwise from the top left corner)- 1) NAS North Island perimeter fence on Coronado Island, CA 2) island of Diego Garcia, 3) Great Wall of China, 4) Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO and 5) one of the villages of Cinque Terre, Italy.

The ocean pics are obvious choices for the beach/water lover that I am, but each one evokes a different feeling of moving water for me. 1) The fence on Coronado was the turn-around point on my morning runs when I lived in California. Every time I would run up to it, whether it was a bright sunny day or a rolling fog day on the beach, I was always moved by the composition of the scene. 2) The pic of Diego Garcia will forever represent the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. "Dodge" was my first Navy deployment and first trip "overseas". 3) Although China is not a place I desire to return to, it truly was an awesome experience to stand on the Great Wall half-way around the world from where I grew up. 4) Garden of the Gods is just so majestic, I love the contrasts of colors and textures in this shot. 5) Had I not hiked to the Cinque Terre village of Manarola on an overcast, churning-water day in March between the Olympics & Paralympic Games, I would've never gotten this great shot of the Italian cliff-side village. It reminds me to take advantage of even the less-than-perfect opportunities that present themselves.

To continue the tour and give you some perspective, this is a shot of the living room taken from the front door. You can see the bedroom through the opening in the hall.





These are the pics over the bookshelf- 1) Hania Harbor on Crete, Greece 2) Aspen trees in the fall in Colorado, 3) a patio in Morocco and 4) boats docked in Cinque Terre, Italy.

1) The shot of Hania was taken from the lighthouse on the opposite end of the harbor looking back on the restaurants and shops that line the water. I spent a lot of time down in the harbor area with Jim, Dave, Rob and the rest of "my boys". I use the term "boys" tongue-in-cheek to describe the men with whom I spent hundreds of hours flying missions and men whom I am honored to call close friends. Hania will always represent some of the happiest times of my life. 2) The picture of Aspen trees were taken on a hike up to Pikes Peak on a team-building outing with the USOC. The turning leaves were one of the rare things I appreciated about the crazy climate of Colorado. 3) The one next to it is from one of the trips I made to Tangier, Morocco when I was stationed in Rota, Spain. It's an hour ferry-ride from Spain across the Straits of Gibraltar to get to the North African port city for great food and a different version of "sweet tea"! 4) The dry-docked boats scene was taken in the Cinque Terre village of Riomaggiore on a summer trip. I've hiked between the five Cinque Terre villages a couple of times, but a return trip is certainly on my list!

After everyone voted for the beach shot of Waimae Bay, HI to be hung in my bedroom, I discovered that the digital photo file was too small to get blown up that big. I always shoot with my camera on the highest resolution, so I have no idea why the one picture I wanted to get printed HUGE was one of the smallest photo files I have! Murphy's Law I guess!! So, I went with the top two vote-getters and had them both done, just a little smaller! They both elicit the calming effect I was going for, so no complaints!



I'm using the second bedroom as an office/junk room, so I didn't take pics of that for y'all!

One of my favorite areas in any house is finally is adorned with canvases of some of my favorites food pics! Being Cajun, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen/dining area, so it was important to me to have some familiar pics in there as well.




On the large wall behind the table is- 1) Greek salad on Crete, Greece 2) chocolates in Blois, France 3) Chinese spices in a market in Beijing, 4) beignets & cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, LA and 5) Italian gelato in Torino, Italy.

1) Although it's too small of a pic to see here, the Greek salad is sitting on a beach-side table accompanied by a hunk of feta cheese drizzled with olive oil. That meal represents endless summer days on the Greek Island of Crete hanging out and enjoying the crystal clear Mediterranean waters. We worked really hard back in those days, but we played just as hard too! 2) The chocolates are from the backpacking trip I made with Andy and Alexis to France & England and were oh-so yummy! 3) The open tubs of Chinese spices instantly bring me back to the pungent, exotic experience of foods in the Far East. 4) For anyone whose ever experienced beignets & cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde, that picture requires no explanation! Ever since Andy was little, I'd take him to New Orleans for beignets sometimes when I was home on leave. I'd always wait until he had the beignet right up to his face to take a bite and then I'd blow on the powdered sugar so it would cover his face! Childish I know, but I loved laughing and spending time with him while he was growing up. 5) Between Navy and USOC trips to Italy, I'm sure I've eaten at least my weight times 3 of rich, creamy gelato! Man that stuff is divine!!!

Now you know I couldn't live without pics of Louisiana seafood adorning the walls of where I eat! They look much crisper hanging on the wall; these pics just don't do the prints justice! The top one is of boiled shrimp, crabs & crawfish taken at one of the countless seafood boils at my parents' house- my favorite meal in the world!!! The bottom one is of live, Louisiana blue-claw crabs!!! Mmmmmm, makes my mouth water and my heart long for home every time I look at those two pics!

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane disguised as a tour of my new home with me! Hopefully a few of you recognized some of these scenes and that it brought back fond memories for you too.

That's it for now. I'll do another post this week when I get a chance. Hope everyone had a great weekend and is re-charged for a new work week!

Horses and trails

Now that I am unpacked and settled in for the most part, I was pretty excited about the prospect of a beautiful weekend ahead of me. It had been rainy all week so visions of being outside in any capacity were appealing.

The very first day I was moving into my new place, two of my neighbors came over to introduce themselves. Next to me in the picture are Linda and Allison- neighbors extraordinaire! Although I thought my equestrian days were over when I left the USOC, their enthusiasm for horse riding convinced me to join them for a little tailgate action at the 58th Stoneybrook Steeplechase here in town. It's a rich tradition with the locals complete with hat and tailgate contests!

I became quite versed in Eventing during my tenure with the Team & Technical Sportfolio at the USOC, but I had never seen Steeplechase contested before. Allison's husband Jason staked out some prime real estate with his truck so that we were tailgating right in front of one of the jumps. With temps in the upper 70s/low 80s, Saturday turned out to be a sun-filled day of eating and meeting new folks at the tailgate party! Ironically, most of the people there weren't horse-people per se, but were there for the festive atmosphere on such a beautiful day and to support the local community.

The towns surrounding the one I live in are renowned for golfing and equine. There are no less than a dozen golf resorts in the surrounding communities of Southern Pines, Pinehurst and Talomore. On the Equine side of the house, the sandy footing of this geography draws horse-people from every discipline to live and train in the area. Beyond the Olympic disciplines of Equestrian that I was familiar with, racing, carriage driving, hunting, polo and Steeplechase are all popular in this area. Such a high concentration of golf resorts and horse farms make for lush, open expanses of green scenery in every direction.

Faced with another beautiful day this morning, I figured I'd get my "chores" done early so I could take the Harley out for a little exploring in the afternoon. While visiting with such a diverse group of folks at the races yesterday, I learned that there are several running trails throughout the woods just blocks from my house. So after cleaning house and doing some laundry, I pulled on my running shoes and headed towards the horse trails up the road. The hills and sand humbled me as I had to run much shorter than I had intended, but the scenery and smell of spring in the air made up for the abbreviated workout.

With responsibilities behind me, I jumped on my bike after a quick shower and set out to explore the many back roads through the area. I rolled out dozens of leisurely miles on country roads flanked with horse farms like the one in this picture. I took the scenic route (i.e. I was disoriented for much of the afternoon!) and explored alternate byways from the main highways. The smell of pine hung delicately in the air as did pollen from all the blooming flora. By the time I got back, me and my bike were covered in a fine yellow dust. Guess I'll wait a few weeks before I wash the bike and car again!

Well, that's my weekend. Laying low to gear up for another week of being the "new kid" at work. I may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I'm not the dullest either, so I'm confident I'll get up to speed pretty quickly!

Have a great week!!!

Getting settled in

With all last week off to make my new place livable, I'm starting to feel settled in. I really like the town I'm living in and am glad that I opted for the 30 minute commute through wooded, country roads instead of 30 minutes through congested intersections right outside post.

I've purged quite a few of my belongings in the 5 moves I've made in the last decade- Spain to Louisiana, Louisiana to Florida, Florida to Colorado, Colorado to California, California to North Carolina. Hey, I've gone coast to coast!

On this last move, I finally got rid of the mismatched love seat and futon I had and decided to buy some real furniture. Upon relating this to Whit & Kathie, they laughed and said it was about time I stopped living like a college student! Sorry, but I'm gonna save pics of the new furniture until I get some art on the walls in the living room! You'll just have to wait a bit longer!

I was lucky to have found this place for a great price. Having rental property myself, I can appreciate the amount of work and money that goes into keeping a place functional and nice for the tenants. So I was quite pleased to have found this completely remodeled duplex. As you can see in this pic of the kitchen, all the appliances are brand new stainless steel and still had the owners manuals attached to them when I moved in.

Although it's just under 1000 square feet, I feel a little guilty about occupying so much space for just one person. I turned the spare room into an office of sorts and it filled up pretty quickly with all my books and professional stuff, but the rest of the place feels quite spacious with my few belongings scattered about. I say "few belongings" but I filled those kitchen cabinets! Hey, a girl's gotta be able to feed herself, right?!

The doors you see behind the table & chairs leads out to the back yard and detached garage. Although I REALLY needed one in Colorado, this is the first time I've ever had a garage! It's big enough to put both the car and the Harley in if I move them around, but I've decided to leave the car in the driveway and let the bike be protected from the elements solo until winter comes back around and necessitates musical vehicles. I know the car is new, but hey, it's a Hyundai for crying out loud and this is a Harley!!

Having grown up in a rural area, I had always wanted to have a yard. After having one in Colorado though, I've since changed my outlook. A yard is great if you have the time and resources to put towards working in it. As I found out in Colorado, fighting natural climate and working long hours don't do much for nice landscaping! Plus, if it's a nice weekend day, I want to be out and about (especially if it's good riding weather) instead of pumping money into my yard! Don't get me wrong, I still love a yard like my parents' with nice trees and flowers and swings, but at this stage in my life, I guess it's just not a priority. So, one of the other great features of this rental is that lawn care is included in the rent. . . I'm not responsible for it!

As you can see, the backyard isn't huge, but is plenty big enough for a BBQ pit and some patio furniture. The first yard pic is from the detached garage looking back at the house. I love the patch of bamboo along the back fence, gives it a zen feeling!

That's all the house pics for now. I've ordered some wall pics that should come in this week, so I'll post some more once I get those up so y'all can see the rest of the place. Hope everyone is surviving the crazy weather going on around the country and having a great weekend.

And the votes are in. . .

Thanks to everyone for weighing in with their votes! I knew it wouldn't be hard to pry an opinion out of this group!! This has been an interesting exercise for me and definitely changed my mind. I hadn't completely decided yet when I posted the pics, but I was certainly leaning towards #4. There's something about sunsets/sunrises that stir my soul.

The beauty of having people who know you well is that sometimes they have insight into your psych that you can't recognize in yourself! I love that y'all seemed to have put some thought into this and I especially liked reading the rationale behind the picks! It was like having everyone standing in the room helping me decide! OK, not quite because then it would've involved lots of food, story telling and laughter- although Rob did sneak in a story about my beach apartment winter heating meltdowns in Spain!!

I'll be getting the winning pic developed onto canvas to hang over my bed, it'll have even more meaning knowing that it was picked by friends and family!

And the winner is. . . #1- Waimea Bay, Oahu. Kind of fitting since I spent four very formative years on that island while I was in the Navy. The pic was actually taken in 2006 when I went back there with my sister though. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

Before I catch a ration of you-know-what for not posting pics, I WILL POST SOME OF MY NEW HOME THIS WEEKEND!!! Thanks again everyone for remaining a part of my life even when I'm far away :-)

Opinions needed!

OK, OK, I know I'm behind on posting! I've had several requests for pics of my new place, but I still have have stuff spread out from wall to wall at the moment as I attempt to get my life organized!! In the meantime though, I've decided to expand the wall art of my amateur photo hobby. As most of you know, I'm all about the pictures. I'm the geek that actually looks through those mounds of photo albums collected over the years. Part of my way of dealing with being away from so many loved ones so much of the time is to be surrounded by reminders of great times spent with them. I have lots of pics of family & friends around my home, but I also enjoy landscape scenes as art. Now this is where my opinionated friends and family come into the picture (pun intended!). . .

I'm looking to get a huge enlargement of one of the following photos that I've taken over the years on the Hawaiian islands reproduced onto canvas so it looks like a painting. As you know, I'm a beach girl at heart so I'm hoping one of the following prints on my wall will help calm my restless soul. Here are the options:

1. Waimaea Bay, Oahu2. Family on beach, Kauai3. Hammock scene, Kauai
4. Sunset on Maui

Some of you have posted comments in the past, so you know how it works. For those of you who have been voyeurs and haven't posted a comment before, it's pretty easy to do. Click on the "comments" tab at the end of this post and you will be brought to a new screen. Once you type in your comment in the text box (and choice of pic!), click on the button next to "anonymous" unless you have a blogger profile already set up (if you did you would know how to do this!). Make sure you sign your name in the text box (just first name and last initial please) so I'll know who made the comment. Then click on "publish your comment" and it will be sent to my email account for review. You won't see your comment posted right away, it'll show up later after I approve it from my email account. Since this is a family-friendly blog, I want to make sure that no one posts anything inappropriate.

Alright y'all, don't let me down. . .

A new home!

My apologies for such a short, photo-less post, but I just wanted to let ya'll know that I'm still alive and have found a place to live! It's about 30 minutes from work and in a beautiful small-town area with some great roads for riding!!! My household goods and my Harley were delivered on Friday, so I've spent the weekend trying to unpack and get somewhat settled. I'll post again with some pics as soon as I can!

Fort Bragg arrival

I arrived to Fort Bragg on Wednesday evening after a frustrating day of travel. I can't blame my frustration on the airlines though, the only obstacles I encountered during the day were due to my own carelessness. After accruing 100,000+ frequent flyer miles over the last couple of years, I did something that I usually roll my eyes at novice travelers for doing. . . forgot my Leatherman tool in my carry-on! My heart sank as I realized when the TSA guy told me it was in my bag that I was going to lose my companion of 20 years. The multi-purpose knife/tool was given to me by a Navy mentor and had accompanied me on just about every mission and motorcycle ride since. Did you know that you can pretty much fix anything on a P-3 aircraft with a Leatherman tool? Can't really say the same for my Harley, but I was sentimentally attached to the tool nonetheless (and yall know how often I actually get sentimental). Anyway, the security line was too long for me to go back through in order to mail it back to myself, so I watched in disgust as the guy tossed my tool into a bin labeled "trash". I could only be mad at myself since the guy was just doing his job, but man it sucked! As you can see from this blog post, I haven't quite gotten over it yet!

OK, enough about the sob story over my knife. . . I found my way to Ft Bragg and have been checking in on base (err, I mean "post") ever since. There's a ton of briefs and presentations newly arrived personnel must go through just to be in-processed onto post. Tomorrow I'll finish that process and start checking into the place on post I'll actually be working. The post is HUGE and I've only seen a small area of it so far, but decided to take a pic of one of the statues that seems to represent the essence of Ft Bragg- "Iron Mike." The monument depicts the Airborne Troopers of the Airborne units stationed at Fort Bragg, notably the XVIII Airborne Corps Headquarters, the 82nd Airborne Division, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC).

After avoiding owning a 4-wheeled vehicle for a year and a half, I finally broke down and purchased a car! My bike is in storage and I can't really get it out until I find a place to live. I didn't know how long that would take, so I decided it was time to become a grown-up (kind of!) and buy a sensible car. I looked around on the lemon lot and perused the internet, but I couldn't find anything I wanted and/or trusted for a decent price. I arrived at the conclusion that I hadn't owned a new vehicle (other than my Harley) since 1987 and that as long as it got good gas mileage (25-33 mpg) and would last for a while (5-year warranty), it was a wise choice. Actually, I convinced myself that if I was sensible with the four-wheeled purchase that I would be able to upgrade my two-wheeled purchase soon :-) Although non-descript, I'm satisfied with my 2009 Hyundai Elantra.

With the freedom of wheels, yesterday and today I got out-and-about in the gorgeous upper 70/lower 80 degree weather to look at potential areas to live. There's a town called Southern Pines to the west of Fort Bragg that I really like and spent the day out there. It's a bit of a commute since you have to go across the whole forest known as the Fort Bragg Military Reservation to get there, but I really liked how quiet and spread out the landscape was in comparison to the options right outside the post in Fayetteville. I found this lake at Reservoir Park and walked the 2-mile trail around it as I cleared my head with the wooded smell of fresh pine.

Tomorrow I'll continue the process of becoming a member of this military community and trying to establish a new residence. Hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy the weekend and get a preview of the refreshing spring weather to come!

Moving on. . .

Today I checked out of Alpha Company of the 187th Medical Battalion at Fort Sam Houston. Tomorrow morning bright and early, I fly east towards my new duty station and residence- Fort Bragg, NC. North Carolina is one of the few states I've not been to so I'm pretty excited about this new adventure. This time last year, I was still getting settled into my new apartment on Coronado and anxiously anticipating warm Southern California weather. Wow, how life can change in 12 short months!

In the midst of packing up and checking out, I had the privilege of presenting to the young officers going through the Army Graduate Program in Nutrition here at AMEDD. It's always fun when you're asked to do a presentation on something your passionate about and to pass on some "words of wisdom" to folks coming up in our field. I got so fired up from getting THEM fired up about the role of performance nutrition in the military that I have a renewed sense of mission as I head to Ft Bragg!

One of the other cool things we got to do this week was go on tours of a couple of facilities here on post built especially for Wounded Warriors and Warriors in Transition (terms used to describe Soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan as they recover back here in the States). The Soldier and Family Assistance Center (SFAC) had some of the most state-of-the-arts entertainment technology I've ever seen as well as a huge fully stocked, wheelchair accessible kitchen for families and Soldiers to cook for themselves and others. I also went on another tour of the Center for the Intrepid (CFI) this week. I was equally as impressed by this center specializing in advanced rehab of amputees and burn patient veterans as I was the first time I visited it back in October for Ann's retirement. It's humbling to be around so many folks dedicated to helping these Soldiers adjust to their new bodies and lives and advance towards a new norm. I had to smile as I gazed upon the numerous pictures of Soldiers participating in various sports. I recognized many Paralympic events and wondered how many of these Warriors would some day find themselves competing in a sport they had never even participated in before.

As for off-post excursions, I didn't get out a whole lot other than when Pam & Ski and the kids came to visit me. I made it out to the River Walk a few times and saw some movies at the local theaters but didn't do a whole lot of sightseeing or going out. Since food is one of my passions, I did eat out way more than I needed to though! One of my favorite spots was the Canyon Cafe at the Quarry Market. The Black & Bleu Quesadilla accompanied by their signature Top Shelf margarita was my meal selection more than once during my stay here!

Another favorite that was much closer to base was Siam Bangkok Thai Cuisine right out the gate by Kim's Alterations. This quaint little establishment doesn't need any type of advertisement since word of mouth packs the place most nights. It's owned by the husband & wife team of Kent & Cynthia who make you feel at home every time you come in. My favorites on the menu are the Tom Kha Gai soup and Pad Thai. I ate there probably a half dozen times but never took a picture of the food because it was so tasty that I was usually half way through the meal before I remembered I had my camera on me! The portion sizes are HUGE with great presentation. Unfortunately, the only picture I have to post is of the Pad Thai leftovers that I took home and ate tonight for dinner!

As I finish up OBLC I tried to think if there were any nuggets I should pass on to future course students looking for information to prepare them for the training. I think the week by week posts give a pretty good sense of what the training and schedule is like. One important suggestion I have about logistics though is to BRING A VEHICLE! With only a motorcycle that had to be shipped ahead due to time constraints, I didn't have a vehicle to bring anyway, but I can tell you that not having a vehicle was a major drawback. I'm a walker and am not daunted by a mile or two trek to a destination, but I usually didn't have enough time to make it to where I needed to be on foot. The bus system isn't great, so bumming rides or constantly hailing a taxi becomes the norm. I spent a lot of money on rental cars that's not reimbursable, so if you have a vehicle and are able to drive it here, I suggest you do so.

OK, that's it for OBLC training. I'll be busy getting a thorough passdown and looking for a place to live the first week I'm at Ft Bragg, so not sure how much posting I'll be doing at first. Stay tuned though, I'll catch everyone up as soon as I can!

OBLC- Weeks 7 & 8

Yesterday I graduated from OBLC (Officer Basic Leaders Course). I still have another week to go of Dietitian-specific training, but the basic Army skills portion is done. It seems like just yesterday I was scrambling to pack up my apartment in San Diego and finish up projects with the USOC so I could come out here to San Antonio to start training. With the blur of last weeks' classroom instruction & this weeks' graduation, time seems to be in fast forward!

I tend to only make it home to see my family about once or twice a year, so my parents took advantage of my close proximity to Louisiana and drove out here for my graduation. The ceremony itself was short and anti-climatic. We wore ACUs (essentially a working uniform) instead of our dress Blues which we wore the day before for an inspection. Undeterred by the lack of emphasis, my parents maintained the streak of attending all my important graduations (Navy boot camp, undergraduate and masters degrees). It was great to spend a little time with them before I head out to Ft Bragg next week. In the pic above in ACUs is myself and Goguen in front of the AMEDD school static display after the graduation ceremony.

I thought this side by side comparison of me from my "boot camps" would provide a chuckle for those of you who have known me through the years. The one on the right is of me as an E-1 in my whites during a liberty pass at the end of Navy boot camp in 1989. The one of me as an O-3 in my Army dress blues is of me during the OBLC inspection in 2009- twenty years later! I was way skinnier from the smoking & drinking back then, but I am much healthier now! I remember asking Mama Babin (my maternal grandmother) once before I left for boot camp if she felt old. Of course, to a 19 or 20 year old, 60-something seemed ancient. I'll never forget her smiling and relating to me that although her body had aged, she still thought of herself in her mind as being my age. Although 41 is not old, I'm just now starting to appreciate the truth in that statement all those years ago. I may look different, feel different and have experienced so many different things since that picture of me on the right was taken, but I still think of myself as being that age. To be sure, I have days where I feel the weight of my age physically or the weight of my experiences emotionally, but for the most part, I'm still the same! I'll continue to move toward the next big adventure!!

Not sure how next week will flow with the move, but I'll post when I can. Have a great week!!

The Ski family!

I set the stage for this long holiday weekend to be one of relaxation. After weapon turn-in and arriving back in my room on Thursday, I immediately got online and cashed in some Hilton Honors points and reserved a room here in San Antonio to get away for an evening. By 9:00 pm, I was relaxing in a whirlpool bath in my deluxe suite eating a slice of pecan pie and sipping a glass of Cabernet wine from room service! I know, I know, the field wasn't exactly arduous, but I felt like pampering myself! I enjoyed a late checkout Friday afternoon and lazed around in bed watching movies and then getting a message.

Yesterday afternoon, I hooked up with Pam & Ski and family. Although we've kept in touch with each other through annual Christmas letters, I hadn't actually seen them in 15 years! Through Facebook, we realized that we were only a few hours from each other, so Pam & Ski loaded up their two kids, Adam & Anna and headed towards San Antonio. After giving them horrible directions to the base (I guess land nav didn't really cure my terrible sense of direction after all!), they finally found me and we all headed to the Riverwalk for dinner.

Pam & Ski met in VP-17 back in Hawaii and got married after they got out of the Navy. They have two wonderful kids who have definitely inherited both of their playful personalities. After dinner at the Riverwalk, we hung out reminiscing about our old Navy days and even texted a few former shipmates that we keep in touch with who couldn't believe that we were all together again! We laughed and caught up on each other's lives until we finally got tired and called it an evening.

This morning, the Ski family picked me up for breakfast and a day of sightseeing. We started off at the Natural Bridge Caverns north of San Antonio. Although I had been through underground caverns before, I like this one because it wasn't cold! With 99% humidity, the dense air was actually much warmer below ground than the air above! We descended around 180 feet amongst huge stalagmites and stalactites. Because the caverns remain sealed by climate proof doors, the caverns remain "alive" and are still forming the grotesquely shaped rock formations. I'm always fascinated by unique construction methods of mother nature!

From the caverns, we headed back south towards downtown San Antonio and had lunch at the Buckhorn Museum & Saloon. This unique establishment has been in continuous operation since 1881. Apparently, the impressive collection of horned animal busts began back in the 1880s when a stuffed animal head could be traded for shots of whiskey or beer! As you can see in the pic of the saloon, there have been a lot of thirsty hunters over the years! Being the animal-rights activist of the family, Anna preferred a tour of the Texas Rangers Museum over that of the Museum of Horns, Fins & Feathers!

It's been a while since I've posted a food picture, so I thought a pic of my purely Texas lunch would be a fitting one for today's post! The BBQ brisket was super tender and went well with my Shiner Bock beer. Although the sausage & coleslaw left a bit to be desired, the chunky potato salad was pretty good. The Haagen Dazs Belgium chocolate milk shake obtained down the street from the Alamo that followed wasn't half bad either!

Tomorrow is another day off so I'll do some reading and catch up on paperwork before classes crank off again on Tuesday. Hope everyone had as a great a weekend as I did and that treasured friendships will pop up unexpectedly in your life too!

OBLC- Week 6

FTX-3 (3rd week of Field Training Exercise) was a short one. With Friday as a training holiday and Monday President's Day, we only stayed in the field for 4 days in order to accommodate the 4 day weekend. How's that for a work to rest ratio?!

This last FTX week, AMEDD (Army Medical Department) skills week put everything we learned up to now to test in a simulated war scenario. As a Dietitian who has specialized outside of the clinical realm for the whole of my career, it's been an adjustment to think of myself as a medical health care provider instead of simply a performance-enhancer specialist. Every time I shout our class motto, "Train to Save" as we're called to attention in formations, I am reminded that I am now part of a team who's primary mission is to save lives on the battlefield.

There are various levels of medical care provided to Soldiers during engagement. Although the lines blur and don't follow such a well-defined linear pattern in today's modern battlefield, the basic concept is the same. Level 5 is the one most folks are familiar with and think of when they hear about casualties of U.S. Soldiers. It's the huge medical facilities found here in the States like Walter Reed Medical Center in DC and Brook Army Medical Center here in San Antonio. Level 4 are places like Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. This is where Soldiers are evacuated from the theater of operations and receive definitive medical care in a permanent facility. But what happens to them in-theater?

It's easier to go backwards from here. The Soldiers on the "front lines" have combat medics embedded with them. For my Navy friends out there, a medic is the Army's version of a corpsman. Like independent-duty Navy corpsman, these Soldiers are not only skilled as First Responders, but also provide the day to day care required to maintain the health of their troops through preventative medicine. Like the Navy corpsman, they are usually called "Doc" even though they aren't Physicians. The immediate care that they provide at the point of injury is known as Level 1 care. The medics are supported by Battalion Aid Stations. The mission of the Battalion Aid Station is primarily to collect the battalion's sick & wounded, stabilize the patient's condition, and provide emergency medical evacuation to a combat support hospital or other facility. The Battalion Aid Station can be split into two functional units that can operate independently for up to 24 hours- a FAS (Forward Aid Station) and a MAS (Main Aid Station). For our exercise, I was assigned to a FAS. In this pic, you can see the "wounded" that we collected and were getting ready for evacuation. Click on the pic to see how we identified the "gunshots to the buttocks" injury!

The next level of care is level 2 which is the first level of resucitative care. Level 2 consists of highly mobile forward surgical teams that directly support the gunslingers in the field. Level 3 is known as a CSH (Combat Support Hospital, pronounced "cash"). CSH is a modernized version of MASH (yes, like the TV show!). The Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals of yesterday could provide intensive surgical capabilities but was not equipped for primary care capabilities (e.g. internal medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN, etc.) required by today's battlefield environment. Today's CSH is a mobile 200+ bed hospital that can do all that as a single unit or can be broken down into smaller forward deployed units. This pic of me is as a casualty at Level 2 with two nurses attending to my "shrapnel to the abdomen" wounds as I awaited a simulated helicopter medivac (Medical Evacuation).

At first I was pretty disappointed when 5 minutes into the start of the "war" one of the cadre handed me a small card that contained a description of my injury and told me to lay down on the ground. I soon recognized what a great learning experience this was for someone who's normal working environment has not been clinical care based. The blur of Powerpoint slides from the first 3 weeks of this course started to make sense as I was loaded onto a litter and taken through the various steps of care. I'm a hands-on learner, so the whole week proved to be highly beneficial in my learning process.

Well, that was it for our field training, next week we'll be back in the classroom. I hope that my attempts to decipher all the Army acronyms and describe the training I'm receiving help you to visualize what this experience is like. I'm still giddy about being back in the military and am enjoying the learning process. I'm hopeful that my new found ability to exercise patience beyond any level I've been able to achieve in the past will stick with me as I move on in my Army career!

OBLC- Week 5

Our second week in the field was much less physical than the first. Instead of navigating around the field and negotiating the confidence course, we spent more time in the FOB and preparing for practical tests. Counting the reservist augmentation, our company is about 280 strong. Although there are personalities representing the whole spectrum living in close proximity, there hasn't been a whole lot of drama. There's been more down-time compared to last week, so folks are really getting the chance to get to know each other and learn from each others' backgrounds and experiences.

Two of the tasks to be tested out on at the end of the week included disassembly, reassembly & functional check of the M16 rifle in 4 minutes and of the M9 9mm handgun in 3 minutes. Most of us were able to do it with time to spare and those who weren't able to were given extra instruction until they could. As you can see in this pic of study time in our tent, everyone was determined to meet the final requirements.

The day to day operation of the FOB is maintained by various work details which rotate through the six platoons that make up the company (I'm in 2nd platoon). It's a little amusing that the only 2 RDs (Registered Dietitians) in the whole company are both in 2nd platoon. The person with me on KP duty (Kitchen Patrol) in this pic is the other RD, CPT Dunn. KP duty is actually pretty easy since we don't actually cook the food, we just serve it (it's brought in pre-made from DFAC [post Dining Facility]). The food doesn't exactly follow the performance-based menu we serve at the USOC, but is really good hot chow for the field!

Included in the weeks' training schedule was CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear, Explosive Incidents). Back during my military days the first time around, it was just known as NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical), but the prevalent use of improvised explosive devices has obviously changed all that. One thing that hasn't changed, however is the donning of the various levels of MOPP (Mission-Oriented Protective Posture). You see me here in the highest posture level holding my weapon. It includes a very thick protective hooded coat, pants, overboots, gloves & gas mask all worn over the ACU uniform and boots. The last time I had worn this gear was on a flight line in August in Gulfport, MS during a two-week annual drill for the Louisiana Air National Guard. The few minutes we spent in this suit here in cool temperatures was actually quite pleasant compared to performing aircraft maintenance while wearing it for a couple of hours in the extreme heat & humidity of the Gulf Coast in summertime.

For the third time in my life I went through the "gas chamber." I sympathized with the new Soldiers who had never gone through it before and were getting all worked up over the unknown. Of course, some of the cadre and other students seem to revel in telling stories that raised the anxiety level of these first-timers! My memory proved accurate as the experience turned out to be unpleasant but tolerable. The whole point to being exposed to chemical agents with the protective mask both on, then off is for the Soldiers to gain confidence that the mask will protect them during an attack.

There's a lot of tears and snot flowing as you exit the building with arms out to the side to allow the wind to clear the gas from your face and clothing. It burns the eyes and throat quite a bit, but a few minutes of walking around brings it down to a tolerable level pretty quickly. As I was exiting the building unable to see my surroundings through the tears and snot, I heard one of my battle buddies yell "Daigle, this is the first time during this whole course I've seen you without a smile on your face!" This comment of course immediately put a smile back on my face!!

One of the other cool things we got to learn was clearing houses. The feces would really have to be hitting the fan if me as an RD were clearing houses, but I was grateful for the experience for 2 reasons. First of all, you just never know. Second, it gives us medical providers a small glimpse as to what the infantry soldiers are going through. As we stumbled over each other through the exercise, I gained a whole new appreciation for the Soldiers who train these moves on a regular basis and are able to move fluidly as a team with little to no verbal communication. My awkward attempts with my team resulted in shooting 2 bad guys and a hostage. Hmm, need to work on my target identification I guess! Playing one of the bad guys afterwards was a lot of fun though!

That pretty much sums up FTX-2. Next week will be our last week in the field and we'll have to put everything we learned into action during the week long training operation. I'm looking forward to the challenge of our final week in the field.

OBLC- Week 4

What a great week!!! Monday morning bright and early we started FTX-1 (first week of Field Training Exercise). We drew M16 rifles from the armory during the early morning hours, then loaded buses and headed towards our home for the week- Fort Bullis. The FOB (Field Operating Base) at Fort Bullis is a training replica of a typical FOB (Forward Operating Base) found in the Army. In the FOB, we lived in 30 man/woman tents and learned basic Army skills. No showers, but we had porta-pots and a small personal hygiene area where the guys could shave and everyone could brush their teeth.

The weather was amazing for the first day and a half- low to mid-70s and clear skies. With such a strong aversion to cold weather, I was thankful for the happy weather! My luck ran out in the middle of day 2 however as a cold front rolled in and the sky started spitting icy raindrops on us as we stood around outside and learned how to assemble & disassemble M16 rifles and 9mm handguns. With a windchill in the 20s, I was amazed at my ability to remain positive and focused on the tasks at hand. Could it be a sign of maturity?! Nah, I think it's just that I like guns!

The sky finally cleared and we were left with cold, but dry days for the remainder of our time in the field. The first pic is of me at the top of a ridge after successfully finding my third point with only a compass, map & protractor during the land nav (navigation) test. As most of you know, I usually am unable to find my way out of even a parking lot, so I was a little concerned about my ability to pass land navigation. After a couple of hours of quality instruction though, I felt like I finally understood land nav and was absolutely giddy at my ability to "find myself" three times in the allotted time! I was starting to feel less apprehensive about the night land navigation test coming up at the end of the week.

Although I haven't been able to do it much since high school, I love to shoot and was excited about getting to fire the M16 and 9mm handgun during the week. Since I shot small bore .22 rifles on a team in high school, I always considered myself more of a rifle than handgun girl. My qualification time at both ranges proved me wrong however as I managed to qualify with the 9mm and not the M16. With so little hands on time before actually shooting though, I feel like a quality day at the range practicing would boost my rifle score significantly. No worries, it was fun to get to shoot and the experience served its purpose as weapon familiarization. I was disappointed that we couldn't spend more time shooting though.

It's no secret that I'm a chow hound! I love to eat! Hell, food is my chosen profession!!! While out in the field, we were served hot breakfast and dinner and only had to eat MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) once a day for lunch. If this is the Army's idea of roughing it, I'm in the right place!!! And man, have MREs come a long way since my time in the desert in the early 90s! They now have dozens of options and actually have heating packs in them so you can have a hot meal. These meals-in-a-bag are actually pretty tasty!

We learned lots of stuff during the week that I won't go into here. No need to tell the world what we're learning here other than the basics! Thursday night culminated into the night land navigation test. This group pic is of our platoon getting fired up before the night nav brief- you can see all the dust in the air from so many boots on the ground in the FOB! We were paired up and sent out into the dark, cold night to find 3 out of 4 points in the allotted time. I was nervous, but feeling pretty confident after my success during the day portion of land nav. After plotting our points and coming up with a game plan, my assigned partner and I headed into the dark, moonless night. An hour later, we found ourselves circling what we were confident were the coordinates we were supposed to be at looking for the marker. Another 20 Soldiers converged on our spot looking for the same marker to no avail. I was confident that we were within 10 meters of the location but was frustratingly unable to prove our location. With time clicking away, we replotted a course to our next location (the course is self-correcting so we were able to verify our current location) and moved on to our next destination. As I was on the ground working my map and protractor, I heard a familiar Cajun accent from over my shoulder. One of the other teams looking for the same point as us just happened to be from Louisiana! It's amazing how the only 3 Cajuns in the whole Company ended up stumbling upon each other in the middle of Texas woodlands! We joined forces and moved out towards our next common point.

As the night progressed, we ran into other teams who confirmed our suspicions- there was a disconnect between our score cards and the destination markers. I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to verify my navigation skills, but the clear night and camaraderie seemed to dampen my frustration and made me appreciate the moment. Although I was freezing, it was a clear, beautiful night out in mother nature with a bunch of like-minded folks. The sky was chock full of stars and the certainty that all of humanity was under the same sky this night. For some reason, I was on point and shooting our azimuths to the next destinations for the rest of the night. At one point during the night, one of my fellow Cajuns shouted out to his partner in the dark "Can you believe we're being led through the woods by a Dietitian from Houma?!" Our evening wasn't a success on paper, but I was immensely satisfied with the knowledge that I always knew where we were. Even though the markers weren't where they were supposed to be, I was able to verify that we were always withing 10-20 meters of our destination. At no time did I not know where we were on the map or in which direction to head to get us back to the the FOB- it was a great, new feeling for me! Unfortunately, the evening didn't turn out so well for everyone. One Soldier had to be medevaced off the course with a broken leg and there were several twisted ankles during the night.

Overall, life in the FOB was pretty cushy. My battle-buddy, Goguen is in the picture with me. She too is former enlisted (Army though) and shares my upbeat attitude about the whole experience. Although we went without showers for 4 days, baby wipes are pretty efficient at keeping a 25-30 woman tent from reeking! I was grateful for my short hair as I watched other women struggling to manage their longer tresses. Between rolling around on the ground during combatives (hand to hand combat) and tromping through the woods, it was hard to keep dirt and critters from making a home on our scalps! Although a good taste of field life, 4 days in the field was in no way a hardship!

Our last day in the field ended with a fun day! We went out to the obstacle course and learned how to low & high crawl and did some 3-4 second rushes. Although we only did a short round of rushes, it was good for us to get a small taste of what the infantry guys are subjected to. This drill starts off in a prone shooting position wearing an LBE (Load Bearing Equipment). The LBE is basically a web belt with suspenders upon which you can attach a couple of canteens of water, a couple of pouches for ammo, a first aid kit and miscellaneous other equipment. Between the LBE, Kevlar helmet and our weapon, we weighed an extra 20 pounds or so. Upon a whistle blow by one of the instructors, you jump up from the prone firing position and run to gain as much ground as you can ("I'm up!") until the next whistle blow ("He sees me, I'm down") at which time you throw yourself onto the ground back into a prone firing position. I say "throw", but obviously you don't want to trash your knees, so you break the fall with the butt of your weapon. It looks so easy, but it gets harder and harder to pop up with any quickness after only a few down-and-ups!

Although pretty bruised up from our day of drills and obstacle course (AKA in the PC world as a Confidence Course), I had a BLAST!!!! I struggled with the obstacles that involved rope climbs (I haven't figured out the technique of using my feet for leverage with the rope yet), I was able to successfully navigate the other obstacles. This obstacle in the picture is a "reverse ladder." You climb up the back side of it, flip yourself over the top rung, then go down face first using your arm & shoulder muscles to work your way down the rungs. As you can see from the smile on my face, this was great fun!

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and this course was a great way to expose ourselves to both. If you click on the picture of the obstacle course to see it up close, you can see that some of the obstacles are quite high. We had a few folks who weren't so comfortable with heights. Also, many of them required a fair amount of upper body strength which obviously, not everyone had. The whole experience was a great team-builder as we all pulled together to help each Soldier face his/her weaknesses, including our own.

With a great week behind us, we have the weekend off (I'm embarrassed to say that actually) before going back out to the field on Monday. After hot showers and meals, everyone is plowing through mounds of dirty laundry and required reading in this down-time. I hope that this post helps everyone to envision what the training is like. Although a challenge for the folks who have never been exposed to camping or the great outdoors, to say that this is arduous would be a stretch! More than once during the week, one of the instructors would catch me grinning from ear to ear and want to know what my problem was. Unable to conceal my happiness over this career choice I would simply respond with one of my favorite Navy sayings. . . "I'm just full of joy, Sir, full of joy!"

If you're interested in seeing more pictures of FTX-1, go to these links:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013407&l=07b76&id=1454935642

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013408&l=b01ac&id=1454935642