Fort Huachuca

Sep 13-16 2004

Have I mentioned Eric and his friend/co-worker, Jakan, run this Air Force site by themselves? Eric's the youngest hire. So young in fact he can't even get a rental car since you have to be 25. I'm proud of him. So was his platoon leader in Germany. He bragged all the time about Eric! They work on Holloman Air Force Base. It's by/a part of White Sands Missile Range. Anyway, Ft. Huachuca is in Arizona. It's where all the Military Intelligence people from my unit went to AIT. I was in Georgia. There was only a few of us Signal people.


Eric and his one co-worker had a business trip to Ft. Huachuca and I got to go! We were going to see Mike. He's Eric's boss and used to work with us in Mainz as a contractor. And of course I'm always willing to visit new places.

I spent Monday in the hotel while Eric worked. We went out Monday night to some club and bar that the soldiers used to go to. The drinking age here is 18. I'm told they did that to keep soldiers from going down to Mexico and getting in trouble. It sounds smart. But... they took that away. It was kind of cool. The rest of the week was better.

Eric showed me around to all the places he liked to visit. We went to the mall and I saw a Bugle Boy! I haven't seen one of those since I was very little. We also found an Orange Julius. This is me and my dad's thing. We always get one when we go to the mall. I miss it. They kind of taste different, I bet my dad's not happy about that.

Bisbee
There's this small town nearby called Bisbee. It's so quaint! There were a lot of shops in such a small area. Absolutely everything was homemade. In a little alley we saw smoke. Turned out to be more shops! And best of all... someone was selling hot dogs! They were so good. They had homemade relish. I don't know what was in it, but it was so good I had to get another. Jakan dubbed me a connoisseur of hot dogs. I accept that title proudly!

Bisbee is a little mining town. Actually it's one of the oldest ones. They had this really great mining tour where they take you underground. Now at the time I was saying to myself 'why do I do these things?' because all the rocks and climbs were very hard on my ankle. But now that it's over I am very happy about it. It was so beautiful inside. The water was glowing and you could still see bits of minerals on the cave walls. There was a shop outside that sold rocks. There was one I wanted so badly but decided not to get it. I have a small rock collection back home in Fresno and it would look great with it. Maybe if we go back.

Tombstone
Wow I didn't know this was a real place! My dad watches westerns all the time. He would love this so much. There's dirt roads and the doors are those half door things that swing open. The old saloon is incredible. My favorite is the gun and ammo shop. On second thought, it's a good thing my dad's not here, he might go broke.

Last Night
Our last night there Mike took us all out to dinner. There must have been 15 people there and he decided to pay for it. I ordered chili and cornbread. In part because it was the cheapest, but mostly because I grew up on that and it sounded awesome. And it was! I was very happy. Mike asked Eric later if I was being cheap and not to worry about it. He says 'nope, she just likes beans and cornbread' ha ha!

It was a great trip. I am so happy to have seen Arizona and where my husband spent over a year in training. He really loved the nostalgia. He had fun showing me his hang-out spots and all his crazy AIT stories.

All my photos from that time are lost, but Google has some great ones.