The Campoamor's Adventure: Great to be home!

It feels so good to be back home! The 6 weeks away from Japan was too long. Shannon and the girls took the Navy shuttle up to the the airport to "surprise" me when I arrived. I was supposed to return a day early but the American Airlines flight that I was on was cancelled..... two times. We left San Diego and took a little commuter jet up to LAX for our 11+ hour flight over the pond. After we loaded up, they came over the horn and said the plane was out of service. So we all deplaned and waited around. After about an hour they said they had another plane for us that would depart in about 2 hours. So we all loaded up in that one and it seemed like we were on our way. The plane was pushed back and then just sat. Apparently one of the engines didn't start. So back to the gate we went and we all were asked to deplane. After another few hours of waiting around to see what the plan was they said the flight was cancelled and they were going to make arrangements..... for the 300 of us. We were lucky and got on a United flight the next morning. The flight was fine -- I stayed awake for the entire flight and watched 7 movies. We landed in Narita and I was hugging my girls after a brief stop through customs. We had to hang out at the airport for a few hours until the bus left. It was a long day for everyone but we eventually made it back home.... home sweet home.
My time in San Diego was fine. It was very busy. I was there for HARP (helicopter advanced readiness program). It's where we get all our big quals like shooting HELLFIRE missiles, shooting guns, and dropping torpedoes with a lot of other random flights. The first week we were in the simulators all day, studying, and mission planning. The next week was all academics -- Lectures, tests and Recce quizzes. The next week was simulators where we were evaluated as a crew. We did fine. The next two weeks were spent out at San Clemente Island. It is a remote island that the navy owns, off the coast (~80 miles) of San Diego. It is right next to all the weapons ranges so it makes it easy to just launch, conduct your mission/training and return. Those were the longest days... Most days were flights that launched at 8am.... which meant we had to brief at 530am.... which means we had to get up at 430am. After the flights we would go get food and then work on the next days events. Busy busy busy. After two weeks of island life (not as cool as it sounds) it was back to SD. We luckily didn't have any bad weather days while at San Clemente so we used the time to do some instrument sims and two of us got our big level 4 tactical evaluations. We finished those up and then left the next day. So the time away was fruitful but just a long time to be away from home. I was able to escape for the long Memorial Day weekend and go see My sister Sonya and her family. It was good to see them and a good break from the training.
A lot has changed since I've been away. It is looking like the ship that my DET belongs to is hard down for a few months. So the big bosses are wanting us to jump on a old frigate that left Washington in early June. It is looking like the ship will come pick us up in late Aug and then we will ride them for 2-3 months. They will drop us off in Nov and then head home where the ship will be decommissioned. Everything is still up in the air and changes daily but that is what they are telling us now. The cool thing about it is that they have some neat port visits in store: Singapore, Burma, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Guam. These are places I have never been before and traditionally the ships that my squadron rides on go to all the Western Pacific ports. So this will be a good opportunity.... even though it is on a old, nasty, and small frigate. So we will see how things work out.
Being home has been good. Work is busy and now with this on the near horizon, things should start picking up more than they already are. It is hot here which was a complete shock. The heat and humidity hit me like a ton of bricks as soon as we landed. It also has been raining most days which led to a flash flood at my work. The entire parking lot was flooded in knee deep water and my little car was not spared. The floors had about 2-3 inches of water inside before I could move it. I shop- vac'ed as much as I could and then put kitty litter on the floors to try and soak the rest. Leyton thought that was the funniest thing and has been asking me daily about the "kitty glitter" in my car. Im guessing it will take a while to dry out considering the 80% humidity we have daily. It was a mess and will be a pain to dry out.
Other then that, things are good. Until next time....