9,900 flown miles - 1,600 hwy miles a crazy cat and a pile of dirt...

The last couple of weeks since the last post have been kind of hectic.....On Charlotte's garden front we had 12 cubic yards of dirt delivered to the school and she is now making the students (yes, including pre-schoolers) haul the dirt to the raised beds we built. She also has cheap labor from the troublemakers serving in-school suspension sentences....she's really enjoying it (not sure which part, the gardening part or the forcing kids to do hard labor).

Mowgli...well.....we thought he was crazy, now we're positive that he has some serious psychotic mental and identity problems......Here you can see him coming and settling on my computer, and that was not while I was away....no, as I was typing just walked up to my computer and sat on the keyboard......then he decided to make one of my desk organizers (where I keep bills) his own napping cubicle...he climbed in, threw all the stuff I had in there out, and then made himself at home......He also thinks he is a dog, spends more time playing with Pie and Scout than with Tiger....he wrestles with them, teaches them how to ambush someone from behind a fern and even how to climb up on chairs!Long trip (again) with a total of 9,900 miles by plane and 1,600 miles by car. It started flying into Phoenix, picking up a rental car there, drive to Tucson to pick up some tools and instruments and driving them all the way to Ft Irwin (Barstow, CA). Then driving back. On the way back I decided to take a little side trip to go sight seeing...Lake Havasu.....Where they have the "London Bridge"! totally over-rated...big time tourist trap! So I went and had some food at a Chinese Buffet (all you can eat for $6.99!, not sure if that is a good idea in the middle of the desert...). After that lunch I felt like my body was completely intoxicated from all the airplane hours, highway hours, restaurant food and military base working hours...

I desperately needed some detox session.....something like a spa, a sauna.....in Lake Havasu!? couldn't find one so I decided to go trail running (against the friendly advise of two old ladies at the tourist information office who thought I was suicidal for wanting to go on a hike at 1:00 PM when it was 105F outside). It was a nice short trail called the crack in the wall....I ran 1.5 miles down a dry river bed, then hiked down a narrow canyon for about a mile, went up a ridge and ran another 1.5 miles back for a total of 4 miles. When I got back to the car I had sweated all the evil toxins from the road trip and felt much better.

Then off to Atlanta, actually Warner Robins (about 1.5 hours south of Atlanta) to do more military work. Here was the best part of the trip. The Air force representative working with us told us about this little place that served lunch that was worth going just for the experience...Was he right! this is what makes traveling worth the effort. It was a little restaurant that you have to know where it is to get there, totally out of the way, behind an abandoned railroad station far from all the main roads in town. It was called the "Boarding House". It has four long tables and opens just from 11:00 to 1:00. You go in, find a place in one of the tables and you seat next to complete strangers, but since it is the South, they're all very friendly!. Then they start bringing food bowl after food bowl from the kitchen as if you were in your auntie's house, you take food from the bowls and pass them along...here is my plate: great southern food! we had fried chicken, meatloaf, cabbage, sweet corn, turnip greens, green beans, black eye peas, lima beans, creamed potatoes, mac and cheese, corn bread and peach cobbler!...and all for $6.00!....

Back in Tucson sushi for dinner followed by guys' night out with good ol' friends (Eric, Dan, Mike -Purdy & Sterner- and Bernd from the Biosphere!)....Today I did some work at Ft Huachuca and then had a meeting with Pima County Facilities (we installed a system in the Juvenile detention facility and had a meeting to explain what to expect).

Tomorrow is Davis Monthan and then Saturday finally back home.....

Weird facts of this trip, Saturday the 19th was our 15th anniversary, I was driving from Barstow to Phoenix while Mike, my boss, was having dinner at my house in Hilo.....