DAY OF REST (7/11/09)

I woke up at 12:39. Perfect. I got dressed and went out to see who was stirring. A few people were up, but generally it was still quiet. People started to stir within a half hour and we hopped off to lunch.

The DFACs around here (dining facilities) are amazing. They’re huge and you have every choice of food you can think of. They had lobster the other night, and figuring it was a rare treat, I didn’t have one. Turns out they have lobster a lot! Darnnit! I should have had some!! This chow hall is no exception. Huge and decorated with sports jerseys and all sorts of patriotic decorations. There was even a huge Mt Rushmore and Statue of Liberty in there. Hilarious! After lunch we headed over here to the computer lab, and here we are.
It’s amazing how hard it is to let go of control and the need to have a schedule, or know what’s next. I’m sitting here at 4pm. I know there’s a BBQ at 6, but other than that, I don’t know when our next race is, where we’re going after this, how we’ll get there, or anything. I’m not even asking questions anymore, because either no one knows, or they know, but the plan changes dramatically moments later, so I’ve totally resigned myself to a “whatever!” attitude, and I’m starting to like it. The Catch Penny guys are so used to it! It apparently hasn’t been quite this loose on their tours, but there’s always an element of “wait and see what’s next” to being here. It really makes you live in the moment. Getting back to “real life” is going to be interesting.

There had been mention on the bus from the Chinook ride that we were here until Tuesday and that we would go to Kuwait from here. That didn’t sound right at all because this was only our 3rd base, and we were supposed to be hitting 7, so we thought it would be figured out, and maybe we’d just take smaller jumps to bases nearby. This was looking less and less like the case, and more and more like we would be here for the duration. This was kind of disappointing because we were finally getting to a point where we had these races all figured out, and we were settling in to the schedule, but it was also nice to know we were going to have a bit of a mellower schedule maybe. Again, we never know what’s really going to happen, but it looked like we would be staying here for a while.

We headed back to the house, changed clothes and went to a real TX BBQ. It was awesome. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled just like a real BBQ. Someone said they flew in real Mesquite chips to smell like that. I don’t know if that’s true, but whatever it was, it smelled good. Steak, onion rings, corn on the cob, baked beans and near beer! It’s not that good, but it wouldn’t have been a BBQ without it. We chatted with a bunch of soldiers, Robi and the Catch Penny gang did a presentation and thanks, there was a bonfire, they flew the TX flag and there was even dancing. All the fixins of a real American BBQ. (apparently this was the BBQ they had scheduled for the 4th of July, but they had to cancel it because of the sandstorms. They had what the Iraqis called the worst sandstorm on written record last week. 9 days of no flights, and orange air due to all the suspended sand. The dining halls even ran out of vegetables and most other foods. They were eating canned green beans, spaghetti and chicken breasts. They were about to have to move into MREs, but thankfully the wind died down, and normal life continued right before we arrived. Thank goodness, but it wasn’t going to last.
I later talked to an environmental engineering contractor at the concert the next night, and he said that a lot of the major dust storms were new happenings due to environmental damage from the war. Tanks rolling over plants, causing it to due and the sand to become more loose. Chemical damage that killed the plant life. Bombs that killed it all. The wind starts to blow, and it just doesn’t stop. Sandy said that you could even see dust storms from space, often they would obscure the view of Iraq and Iran entirely!

After the BBQ we went back to the house, and we decided to head over to the MWR for a jam session that was supposed to be happening at 9. We got there around 9:45 and there was one lone guy playing a guitar, seeming to enjoy the private time he was getting (apparently it is in quite short supply around here!) We descended with 3 guitars (rented from the service desk) and they started playing. There wasn’t really a coordinated effort for a while. We did a song or 2, and decided to call it a night. We headed back and got to bed around midnight. (this house is like a fraternity house, or a dorm room, so we’ve spent a lot of time chatting and laughing around the house. A lot of the activity actually took place in my room (I have a table) which I thought was great considering I felt pretty selfish for having a single room when all 10 guys were sharing bunk beds in 1 room.) It was fun to have everyone hanging out in my room the whole time we were at Speicher.