The Traveling Pine

Greetings! Did you all celebrate Pi day? Cheeky hopes you didn't sacrifice any pineapples to enjoy this nerdy day. The commissary didn't have any "traditional" pies such as apple or cherry, so we had a strawberry cheesecake, pecan pie, and Reese's pie. Still delicious! I wrote a few pi jokes on our whiteboard as well. We all had a good laugh and good treats! But this post isn't about pie or pi. It IS about wine and running, which is way better! M ary and Alfred's Winery Last week Saturday about a dozen of us stuffed into three cars and headed an hour and a half north to the tiny town of Briedel. It's situated on the Mosel river, which is a fantastic place to grow grapes. We went to Mary and Alfred Eigelshoven's winery. Now, when I think of a winery, this is not what I pictured. Their entire operation is at their home in a garage that might fit 4 vehicles. When we arrived, Mary was waiting for us in this garage with a long table that had a ...

"Westallica" T-shirt at the Camp Lemonnier Sign Cheeky Pine and I have just gotten back from what we hope to be our last downrange trip of the deployment. We headed down to Djibouti one more time to finish turnover with our new Paying Agent. He flew in on a Friday and we headed out on our commercial flight on Saturday evening. This trip, I had a few extra travel companions. We had a Captain from USAFE/FM observing our turnover and an Emergency Management gal who needed to get down to Djibouti, so we were her travel buddies. Saturday around 2:30pm we all met the shuttle and headed to Frankfurt Airport. This trip we were flying Turkish Airlines. This meant we had a layover in Istanbul. Our first flight went smooth and without incident. We had a little time in the airport before our 1:30AM flight, so we went in search of food. I found a tasty morsel of rolled & fried dough filled with feta cheese. And, since we were in Turkey, I had to have some baklava. Yum! I made a n...

Hey everybody! It's February! Another month down and just over 2 months to go! I'd say the time has definitely gone by fast. One of the reasons is all my extra travels outside of Germany. I just got back from my 3rd trip to Africa in as many months. This time it was to the east side of Africa, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. It was odd being back after 6 years. Some things have changed, but some remained the same. Tapitedeia Parekhomen - We Support I had to travel down there because the new Finance troop that was supposed to show up had a last minute disqualification, so someone needed to fill the gap for a bit. We found out they weren't coming on the day they were supposed to arrive in Germany. Talk about last minute! There was a lot of scrambling, but when the dust finally settled, I was headed out to Djibouti for 8 days. I was leaving on a Sunday night. Sunday - Long Run & Travel Day Since I'm still in marathon training, I needed to get my long run in befo...

As Ross promised, we're back to our regularly scheduled and happier posts! Since all our major adventuring is complete, I thought I'd compile a few short stories! Duel in the Pool How do you know if someone graduated from the Air Force Academy? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Actually, they'll just talk about the Academy with each other, but you'll be there to hear all about it. Lucky for me, all the Academy grads that work around me are pretty alright people. What does the Air Force Academy have to do with a duel in a pool? Glad you asked! My budget officer, Lt Miller, is (shockingly) an Academy grad. The SARC (Sexual Assault Response Coordinator), Capt McGuire, is also an Academy grad, just from one year earlier. She swam for the Academy, while Lt Miller played football. He's super competitive. One day they get to talking about who would win in a swimming race. You'd think it'd be obvious, wouldn't you? But Lt Miller wouldn't let it g...

Warning: This post details Ross' magnificent struggle to return home, and being the disaster that it was, contains many negative vibes. Our regularly scheduled fun and positive blog will return shortly. This is a long and poorly written post but I'm not going to waste my, or anyone else's time to edit or improve it, so just skim through it, or skip it entirely, and consider it my way of venting. My counselor would be proud. Thank you! Bottom line up front: I was supposed to be home by afternoon on Sunday the 7th. After being rescheduled, then straight up abandoned by my airline, I snuck onto an Air Force C-5 headed to Delware, and caught commercial air from there. Got home on Thursday the 11th, to find that our dishwasher sprung a leak while I was away, a puddle of resting water across half of our (newly remodeled) kitchen, dealing great damage to our (newly installed) floors, and down through the subfloor, and annihilated everything in that side of the basement - wash...