Back at Lejeune

Are you dizzy yet trying to keep track?? We are.

We drove back up June 1st to Lejeune. We stayed 2 nights in the BOQ, but were not able to stay longer because there was a celebrity golf tournament at the base and all the rooms were taken up after that. Interestingly enough, the Marines can't make long term reservations to stay there until they are actually there in person. Apparently the same set of rules didn't apply to the people who were golfing. I guess it's true that it's good professionally to know how to golf! It's much more important to give a golfer a place to stay than the Marine who is seperated from his family for 4.5 months and then deploying for a year.

The entire town was pretty much booked up. Rafe, rather than Omega travel (the MC travel agency) was tasked with having to find himself a place to stay, move all his gear out of one place and then into another. The best place we could get was (Poor) Quality Inn. We stayed there two nights, desperately looking for another place to stay. It's not that I'm not grateful for the preopened bar of soap in the bathroom; the dirt left on the dresser to make it feel homey; the ice bin already filled with melted ice just to prove it didn't leak; the bloodstain on the bedsheets; the cigarette burns in the furniture in a non-smoking room; or even the friendly drunk guy who screamed outside that he didn't want to "be put in a cage" many times just in case we were too sleepy at 2 am to get it the first time he said it. Truly. I was grateful to have a place to sleep, the king size bed was a revelation, and the pillows were quite fluffy. There is always a bright side.

Rafe called around every night until we found that there was a spot available at New River Air Station. We've been back here for the past 2 nights and it's been so much more peaceful. We are right by the New River (actual river) and our window looks directly out on the incoming flight path for the flight line. We saw the Osprey coming in for a landing as we were pulling in and felt so much more at home right away.

I'm sitting in the lobby typing away. It's a NMCI computer, so while I can access this, I can't access my email. :) Maybe Monday or Tuesday I'll hit the library to get it. I didn't bring my laptop this time, but as soon as I can I will come back and update the posts with pictures.