A Few Pics I Forgot to Post in New Orleans

Here's Ana leaving her office on what was to be her last day stationed in New Orleans:

Here's a car with a great paintjob that made me think of all the things I still need to do to my Miata:

Here's all the crap we managed to cram into the back of Ana's car:

And finally, here's Ana trying to figure out how to change a Transformers action figure from robot mode to car mode:


More to come, stay tuned...

On the Road Again... Still...

So now that the wyf is done with her temporary assignment as the official blogger for the Coast Guard, we've set out on the next leg of the summer travel adventure extravaganza. Here's what the route for this leg looks like:


The first scheduled stop was in Virginia (not marked on the map, but about an hour down the road from DC) where we caught up with my old friend Steve McCoin and his wife Jen. Steve and I were in high school and Sea Scouts together and lost track of each other after I went off to college and he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Since then he's settled down a bit on the East Coast and it was really great to catch up with him and see the success story he's turned into:


After dinner with them it was time to head further south to John and Brenda Visneski's place (Ana's brother and his wife) where we were to collect the little dogs. It turns out they were well cared for and not at all happy to see me:
In fact, since we picked them up I've been making a regular habit of wrapping them in whatever I happen to have handy:

They're kinda pathetic.

The following morning we finally set out toward the West. On the way we spotted this happy motoring pit bull:

We were bound for New Orleans so Ana could do the final few things to get signed out of her old office. We ended up getting there fairly late on a Sunday afternoon, but still caught the tail end of a local car show. It was kinda nice to see a bunch of vintage cars and hot rods all straightened out and shined up. I'm not used to that.

I snapped a few pictures so you could enjoy it too:





Next up: the detour north. Stay tuned...

Late Post: the Midget Sheriff

I forgot to mention this, but it was the most intriguing thing I saw in New Orleans:


The main subject of this photo was not my wife (gorgeous though she is), but the sheriff's deputy in the background. I didn't think it was possible, but this was a genuine midget working as a law enforcement officer. I'd always figured there was at least some sort of height requirements you had to meet in order to be a cop. At least that's why I never really considered it as a career.

I had to be discreet snapping the picture though for fear of offending her. There's no telling what kind of crazy midget kung fu she probably knows. I mean she has to have something up her sleeve in order to be in that line of work. Just wondering what it was left me intimidated.

Back in New Orleans. Again.

Last Thursday Ana and I flew from Baltimore down to New Orleans so she could participate in the change of command and retirement ceremony for RADM Whitehead, the admiral that she's been working for for the past three years. It turns out that the admiral who was replacing him is RADM Landry who she's been working for in DC.

For her part, she was singing the national anthem. When you consider the fact that her audience included the outgoing and incoming admirals, another newly frocked rear admiral she used to work with, the admiral in command of the Atlantic Area of the Coast Guard, and the Commandant of the Coast Guard, along with a whole host of her friends and co-workers, Ana had plenty to be nervous about. For my part I was just along for the ride and taking lots of pictures. Unfortunately the seating was prearranged and I was on the opposite side of the stage from where she was singing and the Color Guard was between us. So this was the only picture I got of her right before she started singing:


Once the change of command was over, I snapped this quick pic of the Commandant, LANTAREA commander, as well as RADM Whitehead and RADM Landry:


The plan for after the ceremony was to go to the Admiral's quarters for a retirement party, then go out for a few drinks with a handful of folks. Unfortunately, by the time we actually sat down we were so exhausted that none of us was up for going out afterwards.

The following day, Ana and I went out for breakfast and did a bit of wandering around in town. This time I actually remembered to take a few pictures:




Around noon, we decided to visit the National WWII Museum. We've talked about doing it every time I've been in New Orleans, but never actually gotten to it for some reason or another. As we pulled up we noticed that there was a huge crowd and a few of the streets around the museum were blocked off. That's when we realized that we'd inadvertently gone to the World War 2 Museum on the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy. Outside they had a wide arrangement of restored WWII-vintage military vehicles:


There were also dozens of reenactors in costume, including this guy on his cellphone jacking up the verisimilitude:


The museum itself had some amazing displays. Suspended from the ceiling they had a C-47 cargo transport plane that actually flew paratroopers into France and Belgium during the war. They also had an actual Spitfire and Messerschmitt fighter plane as well as a Douglass SBD divebomber all hanging from the ceiling. The main lobby also featured a fully restored Higgins boat and some other vehicles, but this particular little gem really caught my eye:

This windowless little tank looks odd at first, but it makes a tiny bit more sense when you look at it from another angle:


It's actually a Goliath tracked mine. This was a miniature, remoted-controlled tank loaded with up to 220 pounds of high explosives that could be driven up to or into enemy fortifications and detonated with the operator taking cover from a safe distance. I would've taken a lot more pictures, but Ana was giving me a look that suggested I was out of time:

I did manage to convince her to wander outside and look over all of the vehicles including this restored Navy Jeep:

As well as this beautifully preserved M4 Sherman tank:


Somewhere along the way Ana had to drag me away before I found some way to take one of them home. I guess I'll have to settle for finishing up the construction of my own tank. *sigh*

After the museum we went back to her place on the base to get changed and go out for dinner. I looked goofy as usual, but she got all sorts of prettied up:

We ended up with Elaina (who introduced Ana and I) and Sue (Ana's relief) as well as a couple of Sue's friends from out of town:


Dinner was phenomenal. I had frog legs for the first time and an amazing steak served in a horseradish sauce with a sauteed banana that turned out to be pretty tasty. When dinner was over it turns out Elaina had ordered up a custom cake from Sucre, a particularly good local bakery:


Apparently when she ordered this glittery little birthday cake she told the bakery it didn't need anything written on it because, "he knows it's his birthday." She also told them, "I want it to turn his tongue blue and make him poop sparkles for a month." The first part came true (we'll have to wait to find out about the rest):


While we were there, I also snapped a quick shot of their courtyard. It's pretty:


After dinner we headed over to the Bombay Club, a nice, quiet martini bar in a hotel near Bourbon Street:


Which was good because none of us were really interested in being part of the mob on Bourbon Street itself:


While we were there we caught up with Kristen, another officer who Ana used to work with. With all of the craziness surrounding the change of command, we were lucky she was able to come out that weekend:

We were out until nearly 0200 and we had a flight back to Baltimore at 0600 that same morning. To get there on time we had to wake up at 0400 and drag ourselves to the airport. I managed to stay awake for the drive and the flight and to drive from the airport to the hotel. When we finally arrived at the hotel room, Ana was unconscious within a few minutes:


We've got about two more weeks in DC and then it'll be time to set out on a cross-country road trip designed to cross the country in at least two directions, taking us to the North, South, East, and West.

Stay tuned...

LCDR THORSSON, ARRIVING.

So here's the short version of the voyage home thus far:

It started with me leaving behind the last tent I hope to sleep in for quite a while. It was one of these ones:


I hopped on a bus in Kuwait at 1830 so we could wait for almost an hour before we started rolling. It was most of two hours to get to the Kuwait City International Airport. As we arrived, a Navy petty officer stood up on the bus, told us that we were at the terminal and wished us good luck finding our flights. I never would've guessed we'd need luck until I started looking:



Once we were there we were marshalled into a line by airport security personnel and told to wait until they were ready for us. Standing there it became clear that we were waiting mostly so the local nationals could be in line ahead of us.*

Once we were through security (or what they called security) we had another couple of hours to wait for the flight to leave. I was connecting through Frankfurt, Germany and my flight was leaving at 0055.** I was flying on Lufthansa.

If you glean nothing else from the reading of this entry, know this: I absolutely LOVE Lufthansa. Less than an hour off the ground and they started with the beverage service. I'm not sure how often they brought the cart around (or how often I went to the galley to get refills) but I'd bet that I singlehandedly accounted for one and a half of their rather large bottles of red wine and one of their small bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream. That alone may have accounted for my generally positive impressions of the airline, the food, the cleanliness of the plane, the speed of the flight, or the fact that I teared up at the end of Marley & Me. One way or another, it was a great flight.

We landed in Germany at about 0600 and I had almost four hours to kill in the terminal. It was only through an act of tremendous willpower that I managed to talk myself out of buying a Bavarian maiden costume*** for Ana.

At 0940 Germany time it was time to hop on the connecting flight (also Lufthansa) from Frankfurt to Houston Texas. Despite the fact that I'd been awake for about 30 hours at this point, I still didn't really manage to sleep on that flight. Several glasses of wine and 250 pages of novel-reading later, I got my first glimpse of the United States: a patch of nondescript farmland through a hole in the cloud cover somewhere in the midwest. I'm not sure why, but suddenly a great weight was lifted off my shoulders and I felt like I was ten feet taller.****

We landed in Houston about an hour late. The original itinerary had set me up with about 90 minutes to get through customs, re-check my bags, and get to the other end of the airport to catch my connecting flight on Continental Airlines. I realize it might be a surprise, but I missed my connection. Then, in an effort that was above and beyond the call of the line of duty for any customer service representative, they gave me a standby ticket for an overbooked flight that wouldn't leave for another five hours. Welcome home indeed.

After a bit of running around, I managed to convince a more friendly customer service agent to set me up with a flight to New Orleans instead of Gulfport, Mississippi. This meant going to a different city (and state) from where my luggage was headed, but it also meant that Ana (who was waiting patiently for me to land so she could collect me) could get me in New Orleans and then drive me on to Gulfport.

While I was waiting, I managed to buy myself the niftiest T-shirt the State of Texas (as represented by the George H.W. Bush International Airport) had to offer:


When I landed in New Orleans I rushed out to meet Ana at the gate. She absolutely loved my new shirt.*****

We drove from New Orleans straight to Gulfport, got me a room in the Transient Quarters, and the rest of the evening was none of your business.

Needless to say, we did not make it to the airport in time to recover my luggage before they shut down for the night.

*This is one of those rare moments where I've almost been the definitive ugly American. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing one of these bastards by the throat and shaking vigorously while shouting, "If it weren't for guys like me you'd be an IRAQI you dumb sonofabitch!" or, "My little sister's done more than you to protect your nation, so cut us some freakin' slack." I did not. I should get a medal.

** That's 55 minutes past midnight for my civilian readers.

***This is basically the same outfit that the "St Pauli Girl" wears in those German beer ads. The main difference being that the one I was going to buy would've been about two sizes too small. Awesome!

****I was not, in reality, ten feet taller. If I was I wouldn't've fit in my seat on the plane, silly.

*****Actually, she was embarrassed enough that she almost left me behind at the airport. Almost.