One Step Closer to Home

Thursday last week was a big day in winding down this deployment, I passed one of the final hurdles I set to break up this past year into bite size chunks of time. Still left are; shipping my final tuff box back to Virginia (July 1st), and boarding the plane to leave the desert. SO CLOSE!! What mark did I surpass last week? I bought my plane ticket to Minneapolis...August 14th. It hit me as I clicked "Purchase", I'm this close to being home again. So close in fact that I have already been brain storming all that I want to do when the wheels hit the tarmac in Minneapolis (in no particular order);

1. Get my dog Ginger who has been in MT for over 2 years

2. Head to the Boundary Waters with Nick (and Nick's girlfriend?), Kyle, Danicka, AJ, Shelley, and Jody to spend time relaxing on the opposite end of the vegetation spectrum

3. Witness the birth of my nephew and spend April's birthday with her for the first time in 4 years

4. Guide a kayak/canoe/camping trip down the Chippeawa River for Round Hill

5. Tear down a 100+ year old barn to harvest cut rock and hand hewned beams to use later on in building a second picnic shelter at Round Hill

6. Play "Hackers" Golf at the Durand course with Jody followed by fine dinning at The Panther...fingers crossed that The Panther is still open by the time we get there....99 strokes takes a while.....

7. Go to the Dueling Piano Bar and Britts Pub in Minneapolis with the gang

8. Pool party, poker & fireworks at Robbies...

9. Go to the MN State Fair with Jody

10. Go to a Twins game

11. Get the Family Tattoo finally done

12. Fix my old truck up. Gotta get that beast running again!

13. Be with family and friends


.....Just to name a few