The Traveling Pine

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to St. Charles, MO (near St. Louis) for an entire weekend of roller derby fun! A group of 10 of us from Brewcity Bruisers and Brewcity Bootleggers made the 6 hour trek down to St. Charles on a Friday afternoon. I rode with Paminator and Anarchy. Pam and I are 301s in Bootleggers and Anarchy just got drafted to the Crazy 8's in October. (I'm excited to see her and everyone else play!) L to R: Anarchy, me, Paminator We were the last car to arrive, but we met up with everyone in the lobby of the hotel (which was also where the convention was happening) for the last 30 minutes of happy hour. Once the free drinks were gone, we all headed up to our two conjoined rooms. Me, Bus, Pousse, Face, Pam, Jedi, VaKilla, Cherry, Deathreaux, Anarchy So, there are 10 of us lightly packed into two rooms. Two in each of the beds and one on each of the pull out couches. I think we packed enough food for a three month excursion. No one was goi...

Afghan sunset in the Commpound Three weeks have passed since my last post… I suppose it’s time for an update! Thanksgiving feast: Being away from friends and family is tough on many, especially during the holidays. To keep our spirits up, and foster some connections, we hosted a giant Thanksgiving feast for all contractors and military members in our squadron. It took the whole team to pull it off – we fired up our giant (8 foot tall) cooker/smoker for the meats, had a whole assembly line making pies, and droves of other folks whipping up everything from cranberry sauce, cornbread, greenbean casserole, greens, mashed potatoes, tomatoes – you name it! By the end of the night everyone was full on delish food and good company. It may not have had all the same comforts as home, but we did pretty dang good nonetheless! Trump chat: Also on Thanksgiving Day, a bunch of us were selected to attend a video chat with President Trump. It was a group chat with all branche...