Interesting Travel Conditions

Jon has arrived safely back at his home base and is still expecting to move to a new base shortly. He sent this description of the second to last leg of his trip back.

"The flight in was typical, the C-130 stretched cloth rack seats were as uncomfortable as usual, but this time around, I had my poncho/bleacher seat combo on hand as a seat cushion, so it was bearable (I had it on the way out, as well, which is how my buns survived the four hour convoy on bench seats in the back of a seven ton). Interesting this trip was the air turbulence, which had us jinking around quite a lot, and at the end, we were in a pretty steep turn when we hit some turbulence which seemed to put us into an even steeper turn, I think that's the most G's I've ever experienced in an aircraft. For what seemed like about ten to fifteen seconds, I could not lean forward, my back was pressed back into the seat (my back was facing the starboard side of the aircraft) by the G's. One guy (fortunately at the other end of the aircraft) threw up (the turbulence was at the end of the trip), but the smell never reached me (and the upchuck never made it rolling up and down the floor as far as my pack). As is typical in these flights, I was fervently praying that I would not be the one to get sick, and that God would bring us safely in. It's actually been a long time since they lost a C-130, but statistics don't provide much comfort when YOU are the one on the aircraft. It's pretty hazy here, but we may get out of here tonight back to home base, but we don't know yet. I just got out of breakfast, scrambled eggs, hash browns, a large biscuit, cup of coffee, and a large glass of mango juice. Not bad for being back in a combat zone."

Shortly after posting the paragraphs above, I got another short message from Jon with a current update.

"Got up this morning and did my stretching and exercises, and then went for a three mile run. It hurt a little, but I took it easy, and there are some stiff parts now, about an hour and a half after the run, but hopefully nothing that I can't overcome. It is a real blessing to have had that extra day in Kuwait to catch up on sleep, and to already feel "acclimatized" to the time zone on my first day back at work. Speaking of acclimatized, it is a little hotter here than when I left, about three to five degrees a day hotter, but that's a small enough gap to assimilate. It was about 80, I'm guessing, when I was running this morning at 0545, which I can handle. I had a Motomail from Joe waiting for me, that was very encouraging that he thought to do that, send a Motomail to be here when I got here... I also got a Motomail from Lina, sent before she left for her trip to Canada to play piano at a friend's wedding (a friend she met at Sakeji)."

Thank you for your prayers and notes to Jon. Please remember that he is moving shortly, so please hold all mail (Motomail included) until I send his new address.

This is Joshua's last week before school starts so we are going to have some play dates with friends and do a few fun things before the school routine begins.

Sheryl