Leave Info

Yay for Leave! For those of you who don't know, Leave is basically paid vacation in militarese.

Every time I have had a bad experience on mobilizations, Leave has always been there right when I needed it most, to pull me out of the crapper and get me all rested and cheerful again. Or at least get my head straight.

Leave in 2005 led me to take a whirlwind trip across 5 countries in Europe, a trip I would love to repeat again if I ever get the chance (though granted, likely visiting different countries next time) and something I briefly considered this time around.

Last year, I did a Mid Antlantic State visit. I stopped updating after DC due to overwhelming number of pictures to edit, which meant I left out Philidelphia, NYC and Gettysburg, but I have pictures for my own record. In hindsight, I wish I blogged more on it. But hindsight is 20/20 and I was busy actually enjoying my leave instead of worrying about blogging about it.

And that is the point of Leave and all.

Actually, the trip home last year was interesting too, seeing as I did a detour in Illinois and down through Missouri and then there was that whole Prop8 thing in SLC.

Anywho, if you haven't gotten the news, I like to travel. A lot. I love to visit different parts of this beautiful world we live in and now I'm looking at different areas I have not been to yet.

Where haven't I been? Hmm, New England strikes me as some place I need to check out, so I'm heading up that way via Ohio and New York (brief stop at Niagara falls) and into Maine then go down through Rhode Island and Connecticutt through Massachussetts (Salem in October should be pretty cool) and back into New York and down into DC.

I have thirty days. I don't think I'll use the entire thirty days. Whether or not I continue from DC depends on how burnt out I am from being on the road though. I saw both NYC and DC last year, so I'll hit up some places at both I missed on the last trip (maybe Broadway this time?) and continue on. Depending on how much time I have left (my plan is not to stick to a rigid agenda of being at a specific location on a specific date and seeing museum such and such at this time and visiting historic location So and so at this date and time because then it ceases being a vacation) I'll head south from DC to Florida and go check out Disney World.

Why you might ask? Because for lack of any other reason, It's freakin' Free for me to go there. To bad I don't have any young children or significant others to go with, but if I play my hand nice, I can probably make a few friends on my trip and hang out with them there. Besides, I think everyone ought to visit Disney World at least once in their life.

My mother asked me why I don't go see disney world first. (Actually, my trip up north will probably take me about two weeks if I play it right). The reason, because I can get caught up in Florida for one thing. There is plenty to do there, and it will likely be pretty expensive to go to Disney World for free.

But who knows, I might reverse the itenerary and go see Florida first. I'm open. That's what I like about 1)traveling by my own set of wheels and 2)not having to worry about other people. As much as I love my family to death, we are quite large as families go (i've got five siblings, four of which are married, and at last count thirteen nieces and nephews) and trying to get us all in sync at family functions is akin to trying to catch a feral cat with nothing but a liquor license and a chain saw. If that analogy makes any sense whatsoever. Case in point, nothing ever goes as smoothly as planned when you try to get that many people on the same sheet of music.

Now, if my family would let me run things and put my current training into use, I would have any family function running like a well oiled machine except for infants are involved. But I digress, and I'm rambling off topic.

anyway, Leave should be interesting. I'll blog when I can. And at the very least, I'll TWEET it!

30 days of paid vacation. If you judge it by how many hours I have worked since February, its well deserved, seeing as I sometimes work 16+ hour days.