Marehaba. What a journey! The whole trip is one blur but we certainly experienced a lot on the way and have some great memories. It has been a challenging trip. Karen and I can now truly say, "If we could pull this trip off we can do anything." Just to recap a few of the roadblocks we have overcome along the way:
- USAF Assignments Office: "You can not take your wife to Incirlik"
- Edwards Passport Coordinator: "Your wife will not receive your passport on time."
- Edwards AFB Vet: "Sorry we are rescheduling your appointment."
- Edwards AFB Vet: "Sorry we forgot about your second appointment."
- Point Loma Vet: "Sorry we canceled your appointment."
- Vehicle Processing Center: "Your car has too much gas, you must go have your tank drained to 1/4 tank."
- Vehicle Processing Center: "Your car is too dirty, you must go wash it."
- United Airlines: "We have no ticket for you and no reservation - and who is Julie Dwyer?"
- Air Mobility Command: "Your cat can't fly in that cage, he needs a bigger one and you have 3 hours to find one. He will have to fly in the cargo hold."
- Air Mobility Command: "Why is your health certificate not in Italian?"
The positive thing for us is we beat back every one of these obstacles. We truly saw a system, the military PCS or "permanent change of station" suffering from some minor infrastructure collapse, especially in the area of military veterinary services - but we never accepted no for an answer and we won at every single step. Now Karen is here with me in Incirlik, Slinky is with me in Incirlik, and our car is on the way.
It was great to be able to see all our San Diego friends one last time prior to leaving. Brent & Jackie, Brent's brother - Mark, Matt and Enrica, and Karen and I all went to the Padres game on Friday. I think that was the 3rd. Kori and Ryan were also there but sat one section below us. It was sold out as Bonds had a chance at tying Aaron's record. Fantastic game as the Padres came back to tie late and win it with a home run in the 9th or 10th (can't remember). The next day we all met for our last supper at Buca De Bepo in Mira Mesa. Then Karen and I finished packing at Matt and Enrica's. It seemed like it took forever and I think I still had to leave about 30 pounds of stuff at their house as we ran out of room. We finally were on our way to The Radisson at LAX with Matt, Enrica, and Slinky around 6PM. The four of us had a fabulous Last Supper - yes another one, except this one was well into the $200 range...but well worth it. So we went to sleep fat and happy.
Now, I thought about whether I should include this next bit. And Matt, you are not around to ask permission, so I am going to put it in here and hope you don't mind because it was so damn funny. Besides, I will be picking on myself shortly. We shared a room with Matt and Enrica. About 2:30 AM Matt start flinging the covers around. At first I thought he was just hot and was trying to get comfortable. But he kept flipping them all around and was wrestling around - then I saw him reach for the light. The light came on and Matt had this crazed look in his eyes with a sheet draped over his head like an Arab and his fingers pointed in the shape of a gun, like a kid playing cowboys and Indians. He looked at Karen and I and said, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I dreamed were playing paintball."
But I topped Matt the next morning. We found ourselves running slightly behind going to LAX. Then we had a little difficulty finding the terminal and ended up one story above where we needed to be. If you know me, you know I like to be early and I was a little stressed that we might have to now turn around and back track to figure out how to get to the lower level where ticketing was. I could see the ticketing line and it was not short. Then I saw an escalator going down to where we needed to be. Now bear in mind that I had three 60 pound bags on one of those rental, metal baggage carts. It all happened so fast. This is the moment Enrica refers to as "when Patrick lost his mind." But my thinking at the time was that I would have just a narrow enough slant on the escalator that I could balance everything. That didn't happen. All three bags tumbled all the way down the escalator and landed at the bottom. About one second later, I realized when I got to the bottom I would have a 50 pound metal cart with no where to go and people coming behind me. So I lifted the metal cart and threw it over the baggage making a huge crash causing 30 Asians waiting at the bottom to all simultaneously turn their heads and stare for one second. It was like they looked, thought "crazy American", and all looked away again in unison. Luckily a United Airlines employee saw our plight and rushed us to the front of ticketing when she realized we were short on time. Then another roadblock -The United ticketing rep kept saying I had no ticket or reservation despite the fact that I had a ticket reservation and confirmation number in my hand and that I had confirmed at least three times in the past week including the day prior. The rep kept asking us "Who's Julie." She said we wouldn't get on the flight and the flight was sold out. Then she said she found our reservation but she claimed it was for a different day. Then she said she would switch our reservation to the flight we thought we were on. I know, she just said it was sold out right? Then she amazingly got us the exact same seats as were on the original reservation in my hand! Praise the lord! After that, the LA to Baltimore flight went well. The stewardesses never even knew a cat was on the flight. We spent the night in Baltimore and were able to eat at G & M where we had the best crab cake I ever had ( gandmcrabcakes.com ).
Air Mobility Command in Baltimore was an entirely different story. That wouldn't let Slinky fly in the Sherpa bag, said he didn't fit in the hard shell carrier, and made him fly in the cargo hold. He is still recovering from the stress but did well. At our layover in Germany, Karen's boss from Edwards, Tom Burkett met us there just to say hi for the brief half hour we were on the ground. Very nice of him.
So, we have now landed at Incirlik and are staying at temporary lodging with Slinky. We should get a house within three weeks. Right now we walk everywhere. About mile to work, to the dining hall, to The Turkish Inn. We received our temporary gate passes yesterday but haven't made it off base yet. We still need to apply for Karen's residency on Monday.
Updates may be infrequent until we get our computer in October. Thanks to all for e-mailing. Keep it up. We love messages.
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