where am i?

When it was time for me to leave Colorado for Air Force basic military training I hoped and prayed Mother Nature would hold off on dumping the fluffy white stuff called snow. I left December 4th, and I want to say, if I remember correctly, it snowed December 5th that year. That was over 20 years ago. In fact I avoided the frozen precipitation for a couple of years. I went from Texas to Arizona for more training and my first base was in Greece.

Love gets me every time.

Upon my impending departure from Greece I received orders to go to Bergstrom A.F.B, Austin, TX. It looked like I was on a roll. Of course, I'd already met and fallen in love with Mr. Wonderful. He had orders to go to Minot A.F.B, Minot, ND.

Uh oh.

We just had to be together. Can we say "dilemma!"? What's a lovestruck couple to do?

I'll tell you what we did. One of the medics I worked with also had orders to go to Minot. We were the same rank, time in service, all that mattered. Why not swap orders? She was all for it. Who wouldn't be? Austin was a much better fit for her than Minot would be. She was excited beyond belief. I didn't have to twist her arm. If only it were as simple as trading a government form amongst one another. Fortunately we were on a small base where everyone pretty much knew each other. I had a First Sergeant and Big B had a commander that were willing to pull whatever strings they had to to keep us together. We, or rather, I caught a lot of flack for it, too. It must be love to go to Minot!

Come on! It couldn't be all that bad. Could it?

I left Greece one month ahead of Big B. I went home to Colorado to do some wedding planning, because yes, we were engaged by this point. After spending March at home, I made my way up to ND. Upon signing in to my unit I was issued a parka and mukluks. Come on, it's April do I really need these!? During the next blizzard (1992) I quickly learned that yes, frozen tundra gear is definitely necessary in the Great White North. Big B had flown in to his childhood home of NJ, and after spending a couple of days there started to make his way out northwest and was met with the blizzard. He made it into my arms in one piece and that September we were married. We spent three and a half years in ND. He went on a remote tour to get us out of there.

I seriously dislike the cold and even more than that I abhor snow.

This brings me to my current surroundings in sub-Northern VA. In the nearly five years that we've been here we've had a couple of times during January/February when we've had some snow. It's been enough to cause snow days (it only takes one flake around here).

Snow has become my enemy. It ruined a Christmas party we were supposed to have, with the Blizzard of '09. It's dumped on us a couple of times since then, and now it's snowing again, January 30th, 2010!

Happy Birthday to me!!!