The journey begins...

It’s Friday and my adventure has started. The time finally came to say good-bye to my family at the Anchorage airport and I boarded the plane. I actually met someone at the airport who was going to the same training, so it was nice to have a traveling companion. The flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis, Minnesota was full to say the least and we took off at 9:30pm Alaska time. I had two children under the age of two in the seats behind me and the gentleman that sat in the aisle seat beside me was a meat and potatoes boy. I shared my seat with him. Four hours and some change later we landed in Minneapolis and my new friend and I trucked it to our connecting flight. When I checking in at the gate I was told my ticket was a stand by ticket and the flight was over booked. They were looking for volunteers to take a later flight and offering a $300 voucher. I’m already running on little to no sleep and I’m supposed to be checking in at Ft. Riley by 1800. The later flight doesn’t leave until 1800. By this time I’m hearing Jill’s voice telling me to take a deep breath. I figure I can use my “traveling on military orders” card if I have to. As luck would have it I didn’t have to AND I got bumped up to first class. I finally got to stretch out and take a nap. The only thing that stunk was the flight to Kansas City was only an hour long. After landing at Kansas City we ran into another SSgt that was here for the same training we were. We are growing in numbers. Our reporting instructions were adequate and we made our way to the A terminal via the red bus. It took us a while to find our contact, but when we did it was obvious the games have begun. We landed at Kansas at 0830 and found out the bus would not be here to get us until 1700. We were spending the day at the airport.

I have to send out a very special thanks to my family for the hours of preparation and for getting me this far. Without your help I would be lost. Jill, you are the best. I love you.