Christmas Leave

When I was called in late November that the 1171st would officially be on active duty on December 1; was informed that Christmas leave would be from December 23 to January 1. Being I didn't have the money for a plane ticket, I first thought about using the leave to visit relatives in Lubbock, Texas. However, a charter bus was worked out and took the bus home for Christmas. 23 miserable hours were endured on the crowded bus that had air conditioning problems. I did manage to grab a couple of caches in Texas to add that state to my geo-profile. At one cache I did introduce a young soldiers to my sport. The cache was a simple park and grab skirtlifter.

Arriving home I did spend a lot of time with my family attending Christmas service at the Methodist Church in Dresden. Completed some geocaching and returned to the Land Between the Lakes hiking to Fence Line and working the hard terrain at Panther Creek Spring. Also picked up a cool location cache Standing Rock Bridge.

On New Year's Day, I once again said goodbye to my family boarded the bus for another 23 hour trip.

Staying behind at Bliss

Returning from Christmas leave, I attended a 2-week computer course at Ft. Bliss, TX to become more acquainted with the SAMS-E computer which has everything to do with dispatch, equipment, work orders and parts. A school I have been seeking for over two years.

Return to the 1171st Transportation Co. at Camp McGregor, was informed that I will be return to Ft. Bliss with about 16 other soldiers to make up training that was missed.

On a positive note, during the trip back to Camp McGregor, I introduced two soldiers to the sport of geocaching and the cache Along the State Line was the most interesting where we took time to take pictures.