Last American Meal

05AUG17

Last American Meal

Sleep has not been an issue this week since the “episode” of the other night, and in fact, I have even been waking up early enough to log some miles on the road. By the way, I humbly thank you for the encouragement in your comments. Every word adds life to me. Thank you!

Yesterday I enjoyed supporting the APFT (physical fitness test) for the unit with some running pointers and also sharing some of the last remaining supplies of Hammer gel packs I kinda squirreled away over the last three weeks. (Which, by the way, received high praise from several soldiers, thank you Hammer Nutrition!)

This morning was another such start as even before the sun began to peek over the horizon and before few if any other soldiers were up, my Altras were softly gliding across the pavement. The ghost town of North Fort Hood felt eerily exciting at the early hour. 6 miles later a multitude of runners covered the streets conducting various forms of physical training. It was a good start.

This afternoon I had the opportunity to hitch a ride to the big PX in the sky. PX=Post Exchange, but it’s not really in the sky. It’s more like on the big side of Fort Hood, TX. Not really “like” on the big side of Fort Hood, it actually IS on the big side of Fort Hood. It’s to the south of us, so it’s known as South Fort Hood to us. So, we started calling it Southfork, after a certain Texas based TV series from the 80s. I still don’t who shot JR.

I picked up a couple items that will come in handy in the upcoming three days. First, I grabbed two back-up batteries that should suffice the journey I am about to face soon. I should only need the juice for my ipad since my phone will be off and the laptop will not be needed. I also enjoyed one last stop in the PX for some fast food. Which turned out to be…CHINESE FOOD! HA! And for dessert??? My last official American made Starbucks coffee dark roast. Deee-lish!!

Weird, right? But stop and think about it for a second. Unless I manage to get a second chance tomorrow, today was the last time for many months that I will enjoy both succulent choices that were made ON American soil. Certainly, we can assume coffee and other fast food type environments exist in foreign countries, to be sure. Yet, the simplest of ingredients will not have been secured from an American resource. Such as, of all things, WATER. (Yes, I seriously do think about things like this.)

Consider: each of us desire a specific brand of bottled water, correct? Step into any Terrible Herbst or 7-11 to get water, what do you reach for? Dasani? Smart Water? Why? Because each one tastes different, correct? So why won’t the water in a different country be reasonably expected to taste different enough to cause a variant in the flavor of the coffee, let alone the noodles that were boiled in water? Am I right? So I enjoyed my last American made Chinese food and one last American made coffee and now I can settle in for my last full day on American soil tomorrow. Hey, that just gave me an idea…I wonder what American soil tastes like compared to other country soils?