Home for the Holidays (Sort of)

I have been gone at sea for a while now, but we pulled in for the holidays and I am looking forward to my family flying to San Diego for Christmas. It won't be "home", but at least we will be together. I will be able to go home for a week or so over New Years to take care of a few things around the house for Jeannette. It has been 15 months since I left now. Feels like forever.

I have been talking to my detailer and it looks like I am going to be relieved in July of 2011. I am excited for this next change because this job is not a whole lot of fun. I don't know where I will go next but at least we will be together again, wherever that happens to be.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Trip to Joshua Tree National Park

A friend of mine from college came down to San Diego for work and we decided to take a trip out of town on Saturday to go see Joshua Tree National Park. I have been several times but Dave had never been there. We left about 11 and headed out. It has been kind of moist around San Diego recently and we hoped for some good weather on our way up there.

This trip was the first time I have been up there with clouds and a bot of rain. My first trip to Joshua Tree was last winter, and I have been there throughout the spring and summer months. Never a cloud before. This time we saw lots of rainbows and plenty of big rain drops. It was actually kind of neat and presented a completely different perspective on the desert. Made me think about flash floods as we drove through areas labeled as "wash", too! It all went fine, though.

We hiked out to Barker Dam, a place I had visited before when it had more water in it. This time, at the end of summer, it was nearly empty. We also saw a little rattle snake that Dave almost stepped on. Neither of us saw it before, but both of us were looking much more closely after that!

We drove back to San Diego through Julian, stopped at my favorite pizza joint along the way, and got back around 9 pm. Great day.

Now I am heading off to sea for a couple of months. I get a break around Thanksgiving and get to see the family when they come down. My next real time in port is at Christmas. My detailer tells me that I will be relieved in August. No idea where we will head next, yet. Hopefully, Jeannette and I will find out sometime in January.

San Diego

So I made it down to San Diego and have been on my boat for about the week trying to get turned over and relieve as XO. I am staying in the Bachelor Officer Quarters on the sub base (the picture above was a sunrise from my room) until more permanent housing is available. I signed a lease for an apartment down on the main base near National City and move in Saturday. I will post more pictures when done moving.

Most of my week has been spent checking in and talking to the guy I am relieving. The rest of the crew is on liberty following a very succesful deployment. I actually get a few weeks to get my feet on the ground before they all come back. Then I am in and out for the next several months.

Missing the family a lot and love calling to talk to them. I am going to try to spend some time in Los Angeles visiting my brother, Greg. I have to figure out how to get away from the boat occassionally.

I will post more when moving in.