Don't know when I'll be back again

So after a red-eye from San Francisco to Charlotte next to an extremely fidgety man (I slept anyway, as best one can in an Arctically cold airplane with rationed blankets), and a three-hour layover in Charlotte at the USO (God bless the USO! although their breakfast, big leather recliner, and soft blanket were so comfortable, I sank into a deep sleep and almost missed my onward flight!), the fields and trees and little houses of southern Alabama slowly started to crystallize out of the buggy, humid, puffy-white-clouds-in-a-blue-sky day as we neared the Mobile airport.

And I was excited. That I wasn't prepared for. Excited to squint out the window to pick out the freeways and lay of the land and look for recognizable landmarks. Excited to be back. To see friends. To see my car, and my house. Excited for Alabama??

It was a fun day, jam-packed as I'm sure these all will be. I spent quite a while at the ship, runnign about and talking to everyone about their adventures, well at least, all the folks I knew who are still on the ship. I picked up my car, which thankfully bore only a few scratches and bruises from the Gulf's slew of summer storms. Met my amazing renters who offered me the guest room at my house for the night. The house looks fantastic - the renters have really taken care of it, and they're such friendly and fun people as well. We stayed up way too late talking.

Somewhere in the middle of that I carved out an hour or so to handle paperwork for work...yes, in my overworked eagerness, I sat on an OCS (Officer Candidate School) board the last few hours Tuesday before I left work, so there was paperwork to complete and exchange.

And now I am off, north and west. I'll be doing a bit of storm-dodging...the outer rain bands of Ike started walloping us last night. The past day's been much more enjoyable than I'd imagined a day in Alabama could be - largely due to the people, of course, not any innate wonder of the state. But return is uncertain.

And now...to the road!