Back in the USA!

So we said our final goodbye to Chile and were carried off into the night on American Airlines flight 940.

Meal service. Ahh, that Bloody Mary mix :)


Mount Rainier fly-by in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Puddle jumper for the last leg of our flight home, and the beginning of a month of congressionally-mandated home leave to soak up some of the American experience, and hopefully some good American food too.

Like cottage cheese and hot dogs, and real mustard out of a bottle, not a bag!

Saturday was our nation's Independence day, and it really felt good to be back in America for this. About 50 former South Asia hands and their families got together for fun and reminiscing in Fort Walla Walla park. There was lots of good, authentic Indian food. I ate too much, but enjoyed it. In the evening we watched fireworks under the cool, clear skies.

We got our dental appointments done, and my wife went to the hair salon to get her hair done, and send her donated mane to Locks of Love.

I don't have much hair on my head, but I wondered out loud if they need people to donate chest hair to help those who are less fortunate?

We were authorized another pack out to get all of my wife's furniture and things put into the State Department storage facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. Two guys made swift work of her stuff, while my mother-in-law plied them with cookies and drinks.

We ventured over to the nearby Whitman mission for a bit of Oregon Trail history. Memories came back of my other trip here as part of a high school history trip in 1994. Little did I realize that my future wife lived in this town.

My wife set out to mow her parent's lawn and the lawn of the old lady next door. Fortunately, we discovered this rabbit warren before the riding mower turned the 4 baby rabbits into fertilizer.

Does my mother-in-law's garden looked a little like an opium field?