Mike's deployment.

From Kassy:
As many of you may already know, Mike is deployed right now.  Unfortunately, he can't say where or take many pictures of the base.  That makes for a very blah blog...until today!  He got to go off base and wrote a little about his experience.  He's doing really well and is very safe.  The phone/Skype situation is pretty much a bust, but knowing he's not in danger is a GIANT plus that makes up for it.  :) 

Below are a couple pics of where he lives.  He was pretty excited about his room in the corner of the tent! 

From Mike:

Hey everybody! I finally got off the base and got to see a bit of the country. You might be thinking, "What country?" But I can't tell you because this is considered a social networking website. Forbidden! So even though we can load up a bus with 15 airmen and send them downtown by themselves to hang out, we can't say where downtown is. Just call Kassy and she'll tell you if you don't already know. I would like to say that the secrecy makes it cool, but it's quite the opposite.

Anyway, I signed up for a trip to hang out at a hotel for the day. The first picture below is what the scenery at my current location looks like. I think you can understand why sitting around a hotel would seem like an awesome idea. The drive from the base was nice - every couple of miles the countryside got greener and greener (is the grass greener in the Air Force? no, just on the drive). Funny thing: At home we look out for deer crossing the road, in Iraq we often had to stop or slow down for sheep, but I guess the roadside animal of choice here is the camel. I lost count of how many were just wandering alongside, on the median or right in the road. Crazy. The locals would stop and honk their horns at the camels like Chris honks at defenseless bicyclists. Except the camels can't flip anybody off or fall over. That would be awesome if they did.   :)

Everyday scenery.

 Getting greener.

 My camel pal.

Maybe because the directions stunk or because two guys were navigating, we got a bit lost heading to the hotel. We went on a little "adventure" and found what appeared to be the crummy part of town (one condo complex was called "Safer Apartments") and the prison. We figured that if this was where the hotel was then we didn't want to go. So we decided to turn around and eventually found it. Didn't even ask for directions! Directions vs. man-compass? Tie.

The hotel looked good from the outside but was really nice where it counted - the beach, pool and food. Don't look at these pictures and think that this is what I've been doing out here the whole time. Refer to picture #1 to refresh you memory on the base scenery and my daily misery. However, the picture of me sleeping on the beach is kind of a half truth. I don't really work on a beach, but you could argue that I don't work at all, anywhere. I'll give you that.

The hotel and pool. 

Seth and I at the beach.

Overall, I spent the day lounging around the hotel, investing some more time in my skin cancer account, and eating a nice lunch of mushroom risotto and orange soda (Miranda not Fanta). The only downside was when we got back to the base and I changed back into my uniform, put on my reflective belt (so I don't get run over) and went to the fly-ridden chow hall, it seemed like the hotel trip was already a distant memory. Back to the grind - coffee grind and grinding my teeth in boredom that is.

  

Miss you all.