And the Adventure has begun....

The day finally arrived yesterday (or today, as I'm not really sure at this point) to get on the plane.  I dropped my bags off around 10pm last night and drew my weapon an hour later.  Then Michael, my mom and I sat around for a couple hours waiting for the first accountability formation.  Then it came time to get on the buses and head to Hickam Air Force Base to get on the plane.  Of course with it being the Army, there was more waiting...hours and hours of it.  One thing that I found was rather funny is the pre-boarding briefing we all received which included that no weapons are allowed on the aircraft according to Federal Law.  This was quickly amended to, other than the weapon you are carrying, no other weapons are allowed on board...

We finally boarded the plane and we had a rather large plane, so there was lots of room.  In fact on the first leg, I and one other soldier shared the 5 middle seats of the plane, with each of us having an aisle seat and separated by 3 empty seats.  The first leg was to Miramar, CA.  We landed there to pick up some Marines who were also deploying.  Being in Miramar was pretty cool.  We were right on the flight line where all the fighter jets were and I felt like I was on the Top Gun movie set.  I kept waiting for Maverick or Goose to walk by, but alas, they never showed up....But I did get to see many take off and land.

After we picked up the Marines, the plane got a little more crowded, but not by too much.  I still had an empty seat next to me, which makes me happy because I don't like encroachers.  The second leg of the trip was to Anchorage, Alaska (which is where I am currently writing this from).  Once we pulled up to the gate, we got the news that we wouldn't be going anywhere else tonight as a result of the weather.

There are quite a few of us, and finding hotel vacancies for all of us would usually be a miracle in and of itself. Luckily for us, we just landed in Anchorage in January.  Not exactly the peak of tourist season.  Amazingly enough, the Hilton had rooms for all us, and to exemplify how much January isn't a tourist season in Alaska, we each got our own room.  Not too many other places in the world that you could find hundreds of hotel rooms in one location at a moments notice.

And that takes us to present time.  Hopefully this installment wasn't too boring.  I hope to write as much as possible, as I hate reading blogs where the blogger hardly updates.  I promise I will try my hardest not to be one of those bloggers.  That being said, I may not always have an internet connection, so blog updates may not be everyday.  I will still try to write updates and then post them when I can.  Lastly, there will be some stuff, that for security reasons, I cannot post to my blog, but I will include as much as I can.

Tomorrow, we head to Kyrgyzstan where it is rumored to have temps around -40 degrees.  So if I'm not a frozen Popsicle, I should be able to post again once we get there.

I have also been taking lots of pictures.  Once I get all settled in, I will start adding pictures to the blog, so everyone can see a little bit of what I'm experiencing.  Until next time...