Alaska 2010

Alaska, oh beautiful Alaska! It was my favorite trip of the summer so far (sorry family!). The weather was a balmy 65-70 degrees the entire trip and despite the many showers, it was incredible! The green mountains and beautiful summer flowers were picturesque (I actually did not take many pictures at all this time).

I truly enjoyed spending time with a dear friend who understands the depths of "sucky-ness" of the military life. Here in Texas people don't have a true grasp of the challenges of daily military life, especially when a spouse is deployed long-term (like Troy's 400 days). All of us who are experiencing this deployment are scattered and do not have a strong support system. I am currently working on that through our FRG since we have a large number of soldiers deploying in a few months, but I have not had that during Troy's deployment.

April and I have known each other for more than 7 years now and she has survived 3 deployments and Clayton is gone a lot for his Air Force job. She understands the daily grind of single parenting and managing a home on her own. It was good to just be with someone you could relax with and discuss the problems without having to worry about someone not understanding or trying to one-up you on the problem scale. I love my friends here more than I can express, but it really is a different lifestyle with the military and a deployment that most will not understand unless they live it for more than a few months at a time.

While in Alaska, I went to the anual Elmendorf/Fort Richardson air show and saw a variety of military and civilian airplanes and helicopters. We saw F-22's, the Blue Angels, a Harrier jet, lots of small planes and even some Blackhawks and Chinooks! It was a fun day with the Johnson kids while their parents worked the airshow.

April and I got to do a lot of girly stuff too while I was there. We spent time shopping, going to the movies (with the kiddos) and just hanging out and talking. I think I needed that the most. I really miss our girl-time!

Surprisingly I made it through a 9 mile bike ride around the inlet. April and the kids had bikes and so I rented one downtown and we rode for a couple of hours along trails around Cook Inlet. We had to stop at one point because a mommy moose and her calf were on the trail. The calf was on one side of the path and mommy moose was on the other. All Alaskans know that you NEVER get between a mommy moose and her baby because she gets very defensive and often attacks. We waited and watched as the calf moved back to mommy moose's side of the trail and then went off into the woods. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't come out very well on my phone.

I did get to enjoy fresh-caught salmon and halibut on many occasions. The flavor is unmistakable and I have never had any as good here in the lower 48! Next year it would be worth going back to fish and bring it home. I think I'm already planning our next trip to Alaska! April and I talked about renting an RV next year and going down to Seward and Homer for a few days to take boat trips and maybe fish. Sounds like fun to me!

The trip was way too short, but I was rested and ready to face the world again! It was wonderful to catch up with April, Clayton, Kara and Clay-Clay for the week. I can't wait to start planning our trip back next year. Love you all and thanks for the wonderful hospitality! Also hope you have a great time in Arizona with the family!

A mini-trip to Austin

Since my last blog about my "Wicked" Weekend, I have done a bit more traveling. Upon returning from Houston, I went with my son Jeremy and his friend Harris to Austin. Since both boys are about to deploy, Harris needed to go to Austin to finish up some things there before he left, so we made a mini-road-trip out of it!

We started out late Monday evening because we were waiting for a fourth person to join our party, but they decided last minute to not attend. This was a bit frustrating and caused us to leave much later than anticipated, but we headed out late any way. Not too far down the road we became inundated by a rain downpour. Not a problem if we had been in the Jetta, but we were cruising in the Jeep with the top down. We had to make an emergency stop to put on the top (and get gas). Harris and I were laughing the whole time, but Jeremy was a bit irritated and very grumpy about the whole ordeal!

We arrived in Austin late, around 9 pm, and checked into a hotel. We then went to play pool and drink beer with some of Harris' friends as a good-bye. I met new people and had fun playing pool for the first time in many years. The next day we ran some errands and spent some time playing "Super Mario" on the Wii at his friend's house. We headed home late Tuesday evening. The boys had to report to NAS/JRB on Wednesday for classes and stuff before they headed out to Fort McCoy.

They boys and I had a great time hanging out and just relaxing before we all went our separate ways. I was to be heading to Alaska at the end of the week and they were about to leave for Wisconsin and Kentucky for two months. I'm going to really miss them and the fun we have had together these past several months they have been at the house!