Sweet Home Alabama

Rich and I had an interesting evening on Friday and I know that I'm glad to be home for a few days. We left Barstow on Friday afternoon to spend the night in Vegas before flying to Huntsville. Prior to checking in at the hotel we drove about 20 minutes out of the way to see the Hoover Dam...Wow! It's amazing that with all of the technology we have today this Dam was built between 1931 - 1935, it's huge. After seeing the Dam we checked into the hotel and drove downtown to the strip.

We tried (unsuccessfully) to go in the Silver & Gold Pawn Shop where the show Pawn Stars is filmed; although the sign says "Open 24 Hours" they were closed from 9p - 9a. We cruised the strip and found ourselves in the Bellagio watching people play Blackjack, Roulette, and Craps. Neither of us understand Craps so Rich asked one of the workers...you should've seen the look he gave us...I'm sure our accents didn't help much either. We never gambled any, but we did walk the strip to a few more joints. That place is a real life Soddom and Gomorrah, but the lights sure are pretty.

To make Saturday interesting we couldn't turn in our rental car until 4a and our flight left at 6a. If it weren't for our uniforms and being allowed to pass about 500 people in line we would not have made it. The flights were easy, especially since Rich worked his magic and got us a 1st Class seat from Denver to Huntsville...thanks United Airlines! We arrived back home to our lovely wives on Saturday (after lots of restless airplane sleep) and had a great day.

Yesterday was Easter and some great time with family playing horseshoes, washer toss, good conversation, and great food. Today was "back to the old grindstone" at work to wrap up a few loose ends while we're still stateside. All in all I think the 1960th is just ready to get this deployment started and do the mission that we have been tasked to do. Unfortunately, the only thing left is the hardest part and that's saying goodbye. Keep us in your prayers!