After a year of working at the hospital, in the limited duty department, Caleb was finally able to get orders to be an engineer again as long as he signed up for another year past his original retirement date of November 2023. Bahrain and Singapore were not an option, though he asked and waited for anything overseas, it would be back to LCS where he traveled last time to Alabama frequently and this time has the option of Singapore and Guam; which would be a new country for me.

Anyway, with a transfer comes a leave period (a military vacation) but instead of our usual one month break we could only take the one week that my job would allow, so we made the most of those nine and a half days. Cutting out the other seven days we had planned will give us something to look forward to on our next adventure, this one including our 14th anniversary.

We pack the car and leave by 5pm on a Friday. We’ll get as far east on Highway 8 as Exit 54 in Arizona which leaves us on a dirt road with space for setting up the tent versus sleeping in the car at the Mohawk Rest Area. We passed the miles by listening to tunes from our youth; when we were 15 to 25 years old. Dad calls back and it’s always nice to hear his voice, even if I don’t agree with what he’s saying, while I stare at the stars over the mountain peaks.

I’ll return to camp and climb in the tent that Caleb set up so that we can listen to Satan’s train drag metal across the desert. The next train sounds like it ran into the mountain and then drove over the broken rocks and glass. These are the joys of travel and camping. These are moments we look forward to turning into memories. We are so lucky to have these stories.