From Mexico to Iraq with Alaska Inbetween

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LEAVING SAN MIGUEL

This is not our normal travelblog but more of a newsletter to let family and friends know what's happening in our life. So if you are looking for travel tips you won't find much of that in this blog.

We spent April doing some construction/renovation on our rental house; building up a wall, plastering and painting. We improved the look of the front and gave the roof a more “finished” look. We are so thankful for our friends Trish and Bliss. They build houses (very nice ones) and lent us their crew, expertise and advice, making everything much easier for us. But as usual when doing renovation problems surfaced. The first headache was getting the work permit from the city. Since our house is historic (over 200 years old) and in the historical center of town we had to get everything approved by the city (even though our renovation was minor). Due to the paperwork that had to be provided and filed (all in Spanish of course) we hired a go between to handle it for us. I couldn’t imagine doing it ourselves. We had blocked out the whole month of April for the construction, anticipating the work would only take 2 weeks (yeah, that’s a laugh) but we wanted to be safe just in case.

I remember doing work on my mom’s house whenever I would come home for a visit and each time I removed something I would find more things underneath that required more work and more time. The city took way too long to process the permit and thinking they wouldn’t really check, we started the work on 1 April as planned. Did I tell you there is a new mayor in town? Whenever a new guy gets in charge there is always changes. One of those changes is to tighten up on the construction permits. San Miguel wants to become a UNESCO world heritage historical site which requires all the buildings to conform to strict historical architectural guidelines. In the last administration the mayor was handing out permits like candy and not checking what work was actually done. As a result there are all types of colors of buildings, architectural designs and signage in centro. We had the city guys at our place about 3 times checking the work. Most people who are doing minor work don’t bother to ask the city for a permit. They just do the work or paint the building, but we asked and they answered. Our house was green when we bought it and that turns out to be an illegal color. The list of allowed colors turned out to be shades of brown and yellow. That’s all… just brown and yellow. And only earth tone shades of brown and yellow. So guess the color of the front of our house? This is a tough one. YELLOW! So now the construction is all completed, we have changed out the black metal front door for a handcrafted wooden double door and put it back on the rental market. So far so good.

Some Quality Family Time

Once we knew for sure we were heading back to Iraq, we sat down with a calendar and tried to put together a travel schedule of some sort. We knew where we wanted to go, just not how much time at each stop and what direction to travel in. We got that part decided and saw we had some extra time (about a weeks worth). Mike and I are firm believers of the saying by Benjamin Franklin that fish and guests start to stink after 3 days. We adjust a little bit because we are usually visiting family and they have a familial obligation to let us stay more than just 3 days. Just like the last time we went to Iraq, we had some time kill before our job started and we decided to give ourselves a last splurge before heading to the desert and went to an island off of Cancun; this time we decided to go as far opposite of the desert as we could. We had always heard about last minute cruise deals so that's the website we went to. We ended up booking the last available balcony cabin on a Princess cruise ship which sails a round trip Alaska cruise out of Seattle. True, the scenery is beautiful, but all we can think about is the food. So our last week of normal living was spent on the Golden Princess, a 2500 passenger cruise ship.

We left Mexico with no problems. We both flew to Las Vegas. I was going to stay for a few days with my oldest friend, Lynn. That didn't come out right. She not the oldest in age but the friend I have had the longest. Since we were about 12 or 13 I think. Sorry about that Lynn. Mike stayed the night in Las Vegas before flying on to visit his family in Grants Pass,Oregon. I've written about a visit with Lynn before. This time she had a different house, different man and different horses. The first 2 were a great improvement but I don't know enough to be able to judge any change in the horse department. We had a great visit and Lynn made sure I had a great time. I helped her upgrade their computer setup and she showed me a slice of her life. She is a brand inspector for the state of Nevada. If I understand it correctly, any time you move livestock in Nevada you must have it registered with the state and have documentation proving ownership and identification. Her job is to inspect and identify the livestock. If they don't have a brand then she has to record any identifying marks. The day I went with her she did only horses. I was amazed at how much she knows about horses in general and in particular the horses in her county. If she didn't know the people then she knew the horses from one or two owners back. Talk about being an expert at your job. Lynn, you are very impressive. And Mike and I give 2 thumbs up to Bronc. The man, not the horse. He passed our test.

After a weekend with Lynn, I flew to join Mike. We stayed with Mike's brother Richie and got some great quality time with our niece and nephews as they all live in Grants Pass. I swear Richie's kids are all going to end up over 6 feet tall and Molly Jane's kids are some of the smartest ones I have met. Molly Jane (Mike's sister) has home schooled her kids from the beginning and done a great job of it. I have a feeling she could run circles around any faculty teacher in any school. Plus we got to meet Lisa, Rich's future wife. They are married now, as we publish this journal, and we really wish we could have been there for the wedding. Lisa even let us use her car to get around the first few days. Thanks again, Lisa.

We took a break in the middle of our Oregon time and rented a car for a side trip to Chico California where we lived for 2 years. First of all renting a car was interesting. Due to the gasoline prices the rental companies have discounted their non-economy cars drastically. It was actually cheaper to rent an SUV than an economy car. I could have gotten a very nice SUV for about $15 a day. They usually go for around $40 or $50 a day. We haven't owned a car since early 2005 and filling up the gas tank was painful. Gas was actually cheaper in Mexico where they sell it by the liter. Chico was much the same and it was great seeing our friends. Did a lot of shopping and changed out our laptop for a newer, smaller and lighter one. And besides visiting we also had a list of restaurants we needed to go to. You notice I said “needed”? Chico is a serious foodie town. There are so many great and interesting places to eat and downtown is the place to hang out, not the mall. It's still the nicest USA city we have been to but La Grand in Oregon is coming in a close second. Chico is also known for its branch of the California state university. We happened to be visiting during graduation weekend and so most of the nicer restaurants were very busy at night. An observation we made is how nice the girls all look with their dresses, hair and makeup but the guys they are with always looked like they just crawled out of bed! What's with that?


After Chico, we returned to Grants Pass for a few more days. Our time in Grants Pass seemed to be all about family, shopping and hooking up with friends. We had so many appointments, places to be, things to do; I had to get a schedule written out to be sure we didn't forget anything. The whole visit seems to be a bit of a blur but we did get it all done. At least my schedule tells me we did. Lots of great dinners and lunches with family and friends. And once again we hooked up with our friend Craig for a meal in a different country. We have hooked up with Craig in Kuwait, Mexico and now here. Did a lot of shopping the first time, like now, only this time we actually know what we should bring with us to Iraq.


Next it was off to La Grande. This is where my sister has made her home and now my mom is there as well. Joan and John were having the kitchen remodeled, making things just a bit crazy at their place. We were lucky enough to be able to stay in a guest suite at the assisted living complex mom lives at. The place is very nice and a great step up from her apartment in The Dalles. Mom was able to see much more of us than she usually does with us being across the hall. We had to spend a day driving to Yakima for the WABI test required by KBR. It's just a simple multiple choice test on a computer to see how much safety common sense you have. But it's given before you arrive in Houston Texas to process for your job and is given by a test proctoring company under controlled conditions. After a week in beautiful La Grande it was time to go on the cruise. Oh so looking forward to doing nothing but eating, relaxing and watching the ocean pass under our balcony.

ONE NIGHT IN SEATLE

With most of the family visits behind us, we flew to Seattle the day before our cruise and stayed the night in a retro, downtown hotel and ate some Indian food. We had everything planned out to include buying some booze in Seattle and sneaking it on board the ship. Bringing your own alcohol on board is frowned on because the cruise line didn't sell it to you. If you are found bringing some on board they confiscate it and return it to you at the end of the cruise when you leave. But from all the internet cruise boards I have read they only go through your carry on luggage and not your checked bags. So we picked up some wine at Cost Plus for Mike and some Bailey's Irish Cream at a store for me. As suspected, they didn't go through our checked bags, only the carry on items.

Our night in Seattle was great. The hotel we stayed at was called The Moore. The price and room were great. Many of the rooms were European style which means shared bath. We loved it, the staff was interesting and the location great. I would recommend this as a pre or post cruise stop. We always arrive in the port city the day before. If you fly in the day your ship is due to leave there is just too much of a chance your flight will be delayed or something will cause you to miss your ship. They don't wait for you, you know. We got lucky in that we were able to hook up with my nephew Cody and his new wife Kaitlin for breakfast. Cody is fresh out of the army and a couple of tours in Iraq now living in Seattle where Kaitlin is going to school. Good breakfast, great company and it was great meeting our new niece.

CRUISING TO ALASKA

We boarded the ship very quickly. It took less than 20 minutes from getting out of the taxi to opening our stateroom door. Remember I said we booked the “last” balcony cabin? I think I discovered the reason for that. The balcony looked out on the promenade deck. That's the deck that wraps around the entire ship and is open to walkers. Don't think I like this. The room was a bit banged up and not in the best of shape. A bit dirty and there was a sticky place on the carpet where the deck adhesive had seeped through making it sticky. Yuck. The cabin was nice, just about everything on Princess is a better class of ship than carnival cruise lines, but just not up to it's usual excellent standard we were used to. In addition, this was our 3rd cruise with Princess which usually means free upgrades but none for us this time. It may have had something to do with the fact we booked at the last minute. Irregardless, we felt we should have gotten something for being repeat customers. The last cruise we received a cabin upgrade. There was no chance of changing cabins as the cruise was fully booked. We figured if we were going to have to accept something we considered substandard we should get some compensation so we walked up to the purser's desk to complain. We mentioned we could be compensated with something like free internet time but the person we spoke with didn't seem to keen on that. We returned to our cabin without much hope for anything. Well, within minutes the ball (a big ball too) was rolling. First we received a call from guest services asking for details then 2 ship's officers from housekeeping came by to view the room and make notes. We showed them all the areas we felt needed improvement. They expressed much concern and apologies. Then someone higher up knocked on our door about 30 minutes later to again view the situation. She told us someone had failed to arrive by the time the ship left port (sounds like they didn't fly in the day before) and another balcony cabin was available for us. Were we interested in a slight upgrade? Hell yes we were! After checking out the new cabin we tossed our stuff back in our luggage and they moved all our things within 30 minutes. I think the whole complaint and resolution process took less than 2 hours from our complaint at the purser's desk and us being settled into our new room. The new place has a great location. A balcony cabin at the rear of the ship. A much better view and almost zero foot traffic past our door. We were very impressed with the attention our complaint received. They also checked up on us with a phone call the day after our move and today (3 days later) one of the ships' officers came by to check on us. Both Mike and I have already gained weight since we got on board and our clothes are just a bit tighter.

BACK IN IRAQ

From Seatle it was a quick stop in Portland, which included a nice visit with Stevie, then off to Houston for 10 days of processing. And then... Iraq. Yes, we send out this travelblog from Baghdad, Iraq. Crazy? We just might just be. We had been in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for almost a year! Wow, we usually don’t stay put this long and God forbid we put down roots anywhere. We had an opportunity to go back to work for KBR and since buying our house in Mexico greatly reduced our savings account, we felt the need to build it back up. Once again greed rears it’s ugly but profitable head. Plus, with the moving trucks coming soon to the White House, to remove the current President from the premises, there is a very good chance these contractor positions won’t last much longer. So we’ll take advantage while the opportunity still exists, and hopefully be here to watch the draw-down. Over the past year, since leaving Iraq, we had stayed in touch with a few people we worked with. As it turned out, several of the ones we liked working with were all working at the same camp. So, after a few emails, and the assurance that we would both be assigned to the same camp, we started the process to return.

Our next blog will be all about our return to Iraq and what we think now that we are here...

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Photos

Can you see our Balcony?
Rearview of our ship. Our balcony is 3 levels down and to the right.

Port-Call Juneau
Sitting on our balcony, slowing pulling out of Juneau, Alaska.

Mike braves the cold.
Determined to enjoy the scenery with a cigar and glass of wine, even if it's only 46 degrees.