But, here we go, HELLO!
Oh where to begin? When last we
met I was attending a Training NCO course at PEC in Arkansas. Well, I’m currently on another trip. This time I’m a little further east, in
ALABAMA (read that as though Forrest Gump is yelling it). Why is this die-hard Husker fan down in such
established enemy territory? Well, I’m
here for a 6 week Ground Officer Safety Course.
The flight down was interesting.
Two connecting flights, never had that on a stateside flight
before. In Washington D.C., we got stuck
for about 4 hours waiting for Atlanta on a weather delay. When we finally landed in Atlanta, I had
roughly 12 minutes to make my connecting flight… from terminal A, gate 14, all
the way to terminal D, gate 46 (last gate on that line). Needless to say I ran my ass off and made it,
they closed the doors 3 minutes after I boarded. I found it humorous that the next day, I got
an email reminder that my “new flight” would be at 1600 (that day), apparently
they thought I hadn’t made the flight the night before. I was really worried that my luggage did not
make the flight.
On the puddle jumper we took for the roughly half hour flight to
Dothan, Alabama, I noticed that Alamo was going to be closed when we arrived,
leaving me to believe that I’d have no transportation to Ft. Rucker. As we got off the flight, it was a relief to
see they were still open (2 hours late, and looking rather disheveled). I was upgraded to a blue Nissan Rogue:
This is usually because, as the last people getting vehicles on a
particular day, often times they have no economy or compacts left. In some ways, a smaller vehicle is a little
nicer for getting around in areas you haven’t driven or parking where you haven’t
been, but a larger vehicle is safer and more comfortable. At Ft. Rucker, I’m staying in a Holiday Inn
Express.
Obviously my main reason for being here is to pass this course, and it’s
supposed to be relatively difficult. With
weekends off, it might be a little boring, but I can focus on the second most
important reason I’m here, and that is to whip myself back into shape. Unfortunately, Alabama ranks second to last
in the nation in the “fitness” area, and looking for a running trail certainly
showed that. I had to drive 35 minutes
to find a decent one yesterday. Ended up
being a dirt packed mountain bike type trail, owned by the city of Dothan. It was a pleasant hour long run on uneven
trails with lots of curves and mild elevation changes.
“Why aren’t you running on post?”
Well, Ft. Rucker is THE safety center for the U.S. Army, and as such, the
rules are absolutely stifling when it comes to doing ANYTHING here. To run on the roads during certain hours, you
must be in Army PT uniform, you must have the PT belt worn facing the correct
direction across the waist, unless you have the PT jacket on, then you must
wear it across your chest diagonally, if you are an officer your PT belt must
be blue, if you are an NCO it must be green, if you are this, that, there…. bla
bla bla… you can see how it gets rather overbearing in a hurry, I would rather
just be somewhere and run on my own without worrying that my shoes might be laced in the
wrong direction, or that someone will yell at me for not wearing a traffic cone
on top of my head.
Obviously the other important part of getting back into shape is
avoiding one of the main pitfalls of being away from home: eating out.
So I spent a good amount of money on a lot of veggies and good food that
I’m storing in my room. So far so good,
I have yet to eat out, sticking to the food in the room only. I’m within just a couple hours of Pensacola,
Panama Beach, Tallahassee, a lot of really cool places, so I’ve really got to
be vigilant if I want to continue getting into shape. I do want to visit some of these places but I’ll
likely pack my meals to again, avoid fast food.
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