A Travelogue

of sorts. Or, Where I've Been The Last Week.

This starts with sons' unit going to A'stan. Which wouldn't really have meant all this, except
They only got four months official "You are going" notice.
Then the Army changed the date. Moved up about two weeks.
Then they were advised "Well, there's some training on new equipment we were supposed to have done, but since we didn't do it when we should have, you guys don't get any pre-deployment leave because we're short on time." You can imagine how that went over.
His plan had been to use his leave to drive home, leave his truck and some personal stuff here when the leave was done and fly back. So now the plan became I would fly up there, visit a couple of days, then drive back. Dad decided to go along(a good thing) so we could trade off driving.

Except the unit wouldn't give an actual "You are leaving this date"; which makes travel plans kind of difficult. FINALLY he was told "Between this date and this date, you're going", so I bought tickets.

Oh yeah, you did guess what happens next!

A week later he calls, "You're going to love this." They moved the date up. So change things around for new tickets, change dates, etc. And spend the next ten days worried the morons in charge are going to change things again. Which added one more concern: sons' dog.
As in "If they change this again and we can't get there before, where can we put the truck and dog till we get there?" Which is where I say "Thank you, again" to Sondra; she lives up in that area and when contacted, despite a, ah, 'hectic' situation said 'If it happens, we'll figure out a way'. Took a lot of pressure off.

Now we come to the flight. First,
Fuck the TSA.
No, we had no real problems getting through. Fuck 'em first, for causing the "What that I need to take might cause a problem because of them?" worries. Like deciding to leave my usual jacket behind because it's been worn at the range and might freak them out if they test it; that kind of PITA. Oklahoma City now has two of the "We get to see you naked" scanners, but I was spared deciding whether to be irradiated or to tell them "No, I'm not walking through a possible unsafe scanner, you'll have to feel me up", we weren't 'chosen for special treatment'. But I did get a fine demonstration of why 'security theater' is the description for this: they did decide that Dad and I both needed to have our shaving stuff checked for explosive residue. So we had to stand there trying to put our shoes back on and watching("You're supposed to watch while I do this") as they selected a bottle from each and ran a swab around the lid. That's it. That's 'keeping us safe in the air, for which we have badges and can screw your life around if we get annoyed. Or just want to order someone around, 'cause we have badges we don't deserve.' Speaking of which.

So we get through screening and fly out. First leg, no problem. Second leg, well, due to lack of choices at short date we had a total of 30 minutes to change planes, and since they didn't get the door open on the first until almost ten minutes into that, it meant walking fast/trotting all the way; if it'd been any further we wouldn't have made it. Barely did, which had been my real worry after having to change tickets.

But we made it.

Did you know Seattle has a troll under a bridge?