Arrived in Indianapolis

***To all those who have asked, YOU MAY NOW POST COMMENTS WITHOUT LOGGING IN!  I thought I had fixed this setting earlier, but apparently, I did not.  I will alert everyone should I choose to change this.  You now have no excuse not to comment if you desire to:)***

I spent most of the day travelling from Saint Paul to Indianapolis.

Before I left, my parents came by to send me off with homemade apple raisin muffins.  They were quite good.

Travel itself went very well with remarkably few hitches.  The weather was unseasonable wonderful today and traffic was also unexpectedly clear.  Instead of the typical 13 hours to make the trip, I made it in 11 hours.  When you factor in breaks, I actually made the trip under time somehow, even with minor road construction and a 6 mile detour.  Here are some pictures of places I stopped at along the way.  I don't expect to see scenery like this when I'm in Europe.

This was a rest area in Wisconisn...

This was around 100 miles outside of Indianapolis.  The picture is of a fighter plane parked in the parking lot.  I somehow missed it coming into the entrance, but I did see in on the way out.  Cut me some slack...it was camouflaged.

Upon arrival, I moved everything I had into my temporary room in the house.  It's quite cozy, and plenty spacious for me.  The farm houses four other dogs, two other cats beside the two that are my wife's and mine, and has a good number of chickens and possibly turkeys in the barn.  R and I slowly introduced the dogs to each other.  It went by far more easily than either of us anticipated.  It is possible that Etsy is finally calming down a bit.  R also got some mighty tasty pizza for us for dinner.  C was having her alternate break evening from the farm.

Here are a few pictures of where I'll be staying the next month...

Don't worry, I'll get plenty of pictures of the animals in the near future.

When C got back, we chatted briefly, then I pretty much got ready for bed.  Our cats are being kept separate from the house cats as one of the four don't seem to get along too well with the others.  Our cats get their own room during the night, and their one cat gets her own room during the day, so I will see the kitties tomorrow.  Tobias, no doubt, will claw the crap out of me.  I'll have to make sure to wear a non-valuable shirt and pants.  I am very much looking forward to seeing and holding them again.

My day tomorrow will be odd as there is daylight savings tomorrow morning and I will be going to bed around 6pm in order to get up and leave at 12am midnight between Sunday and Monday.  I'm doing that so I can drive to Baltimore and arrive during vehicle processing hours and them fly back to Indianapolis right after.  Unfortunately, because I don't know when I will arrive or complete vehicle processing, I'm forced to buy the plane ticket at the airport.  I called earlier, and it's cheaper to do it that way rather than guess and pay extra for a change fee.  I suppose I could have scheduled an evening flight, but I don't want to stay in Baltimore any longer than I have to.

On the Georgia Front, I got more details about the past few days.  The JA's were running on low sleep and lots of hiking.  So the morning they got "attacked," my wife was working on heading toward supporting the guard tower when an officer stopped her and informed her she was now "wounded" and had to lay on the ground until someone got her to the infirmary.  So, while she got to sleep in a bed "recovering," many of her friends had to guard their mini-station overnight on hard gravel.

Their last day was spent doing an 8 mile march carrying all of their gear and some camp gear totalling over 50lbs per person.  Earlier in the week, when carrying some of the camp gear they had to carry approximately 100lbs per person!  My wife ended up finishing near the first pack at around 2 hours and 9 minutes because she is, by nature, a fast walker.  I know this because she outpaces me walking even though I'm a solid 6 inches or more taller than she is.

Last night and today, she spent with some fellow JA's off base.  I was informed today that she is recovering from all of the soreness and beating a body takes when it carries far more than it is used to for a long stretch of time.  The only relation I have close to that is portaging gear in the boundary waters.  8 miles at that weight is a lot!

Only 6 more days left until I get to see her again!  I'm so excited.  And I know she'll be excited to be done with training at that point!