Sunday, January 25, 2004
As most of you know first-hand, patience and serenity are not exactly my strong suits. I want what I want, and I want it yesterday, if not sooner. This is exactly the sort of personality that is the natural enemy of the military space-available travel system.
It seemed so simple in the planning. Two C5s go from Kelly Annex in San Antonio to Ramstein, Germany, every week. They continue on to Uzbekistan before turning around and heading home via the same route. How hard could it be to snag 3 seats on one of these birdies?
Well, if the birdies would freakin' FLY, it might not be so hard! This past week though, only one of the C5s made the trip in the first place. It then spent well over 100 hours sitting broken in Ramstein. It should have been heading home to the States by Friday or Saturday. Instead, it is only NOW heading off to Uzbekistan (we hope) tomorrow, so the earliest it could leave for Texas is Tuesday. Needless to say, I'm rapidly working my way toward a nervous breakdown.
Skipping this trip is NOT an option. The kids are so excited about seeing their friends in Texas that we will make it if I have to row us there in a canoe. Or take a flight to Charleston or Atlanta and drive from there. Personally, I'd prefer the canoe.
We have tried to make the most of our extra weekend here in Germany though, and we have had a pretty good time. Yesterday we drove up to Darmstadt for the day. The kids enjoyed exploring the Frankenstein (yup, that very one) castle:
They also thought the Russian wedding chapel was pretty neat:
Last night we got a couple inches of snow, which they made good use of this morning before it all melted away. They and their friend Rebecca made a rainbow-haired snow-Chia (it's a neopet) in Rebecca's backyard:
Afterwards, they looked like a couple of drowned rats:
Once our snow had melted away in the rain, we hooked up with Rebecca's family and drove into the Odenwald for an afternoon of sledding. Here's Fred preparing to launch Rebecca, Annabelle, and Mike down the hill:
The hill was crawling with kids making full use of their sleds and toboggans. Some, however, chose more artistic endeavors. I liked these kids with their snow bunnies:
It seemed so simple in the planning. Two C5s go from Kelly Annex in San Antonio to Ramstein, Germany, every week. They continue on to Uzbekistan before turning around and heading home via the same route. How hard could it be to snag 3 seats on one of these birdies?
Well, if the birdies would freakin' FLY, it might not be so hard! This past week though, only one of the C5s made the trip in the first place. It then spent well over 100 hours sitting broken in Ramstein. It should have been heading home to the States by Friday or Saturday. Instead, it is only NOW heading off to Uzbekistan (we hope) tomorrow, so the earliest it could leave for Texas is Tuesday. Needless to say, I'm rapidly working my way toward a nervous breakdown.
Skipping this trip is NOT an option. The kids are so excited about seeing their friends in Texas that we will make it if I have to row us there in a canoe. Or take a flight to Charleston or Atlanta and drive from there. Personally, I'd prefer the canoe.
We have tried to make the most of our extra weekend here in Germany though, and we have had a pretty good time. Yesterday we drove up to Darmstadt for the day. The kids enjoyed exploring the Frankenstein (yup, that very one) castle:
They also thought the Russian wedding chapel was pretty neat:
Last night we got a couple inches of snow, which they made good use of this morning before it all melted away. They and their friend Rebecca made a rainbow-haired snow-Chia (it's a neopet) in Rebecca's backyard:
Afterwards, they looked like a couple of drowned rats:
Once our snow had melted away in the rain, we hooked up with Rebecca's family and drove into the Odenwald for an afternoon of sledding. Here's Fred preparing to launch Rebecca, Annabelle, and Mike down the hill:
The hill was crawling with kids making full use of their sleds and toboggans. Some, however, chose more artistic endeavors. I liked these kids with their snow bunnies:
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