It is the intent of this Blog to document the planning and execution of a journey of re-discovery by me and my family when I return from Afghanistan in the early spring.
I am a Reservist on active duty completing my second consecutive tour in Afghanistan. My orders end 23 May 2010 at which time I should have over 100 days leave built up. I think this presents an excellent opportunity to travel and see the country. I love to travel and see new thinks as does Illianna and kids are kids. This will be an opportunity for Illianna to see and learn about her adopted country first hand. As far as the kids are concerned, it should be a trip that will always remember, a grand adventure!
After I de-mobed in 2005, I went to work the following Monday with no break. That was a mistake on a lot of levels. I traded one set of stresses for another and it was not good. In looking back, I should have taken at least a week or so before wadding back in. Even at the time I questioned it but in a lot of ways was pressured into going right into the survey thing. I am not going to make that mistake this time....
While I was home on mid-tour leave this month, we had planned to take the Kids to Disney World for a week. Events transpired where that was not really an option. We did however get away for a couple days to Cincinnati and visited the Museums there and the Newport Aquarium. It was a great trip that we all enjoyed a great deal. The only problem with that trip was it was to short and our oldest daughter didn't get to accompany us as she had to work.
Illianna and I talked about the mistake of wadding right back into things after the last deployment and agree that a period of travel and decompression and re-acquaintance would be a good thing. By the time I get home, I will have been deployed almost continually for 30 months; that is a long time to have been away from a young family. When I deployed in October 2007, Mercator was little more than a toddler, not even two. Bridgette was just starting school and Chelsey just starting College. I have missed a lot, especially for the younger kids. I was shocked at how big both had got in just that last six months since I was last home on leave. Bridgette has turned into quite the young lady and Mercator has turned into your typical four year old boy full of energy and wonder at life and the world around him. We deserve the chance to get to know each other again.
I told Illianna that we are hooking up the 5th-Wheel and heading out and hitting the road when I got back. She wants to see the Southwest and there are things there I'd like to show her and the kids. There are also a couple of places in the Southwest that I need to go to in order to do a little bit of research for my book.
Me, I have never been into the northwest and think I would like to see what is there. Somehow, before I came home on leave, I found some information on the journey of the Lewis & Clark expedition and thought that following their travels might be a great way to rediscover America and my family not necessarily in that order. Illianna while not really understanding who Lewis & Clark are, likes that idea of seeing the country.
In my preliminary research, I have found that the National Park Service Has a Lewis & Clark Trail that starts in St Louis. While not 100% that we are going to follow Lewis & Clark, it does give a general outline to follow.
Being a native of southern Indiana, I know that a great deal of the preparations Lewis & Clark made were done in the Clark grant across the river from Louisville Kentucky. I think we might actually take a day trip down there without pulling the 5th-Wheel ;-)
It will be a journey of discovery for my family. I am sure we are going to discover not just things about our country, present and past, but maybe more importantly, things about ourselves that we did not know......
So, in not so short and rambling prose, that is the origin of the Bell Family Corps of Discovery.
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