Goodbye America...

Yup, that time is here. This will be the last posting that I will make for the good old US of A for a while. I have thourougly enjoyed myself while I've been home, and as sad as I am to leave this place, my family and my friends, I am eager to get back and see my boys and to finish this up and be back for good. I have many great memories to take with me to get me through the remaining few months left so that is good.

Yesterday for Halloween I ended up getting a chance to swing by the Arizona State Fair, and had a BLAST! We arrived just in time to walk in to the Stadium right as Alice Cooper was coming on stage! OMG it was an awesome concert and he put on an amazing show. The music was fantastic and we just went crazy for an hour and a half while he played to the crowd of oh maybe 8000 if I had to guess! Good times.

After the show we went out and decided to ride the rides. They had a special deal that night, being Halloween and so we ended up getting 10 rides for a really cheap price. Of course I felt it nessicary to use all the free rides on the crazy, badass and scary rides! I wasn't going to waste my free rides ya know. I wont go in to each of the rides but they were awesome and many of them got my heart going. I love the fair rides because they always feel so rickety and you never know if its going to break down! Hahah, ok Im sure thats NOT going to happen but they were fun and scary.

We ended up riding this one that is the "featured" ride and you have to pay per ride. It was $50 for the 2 of us! Basically you both sit in this caged ball thing and its attached to these cables that run to the top of these cranes probably 80 or so feet in the air. Once you are strapped in and everything they charge the machine up and then once they release you, you are rocketed HIGH into the sky, well above the tops of the cranes. They you come plumeting back down and the back up and so on. It was amazing! It was short lived and once we were down the guy started to unstrap us when I said "Hey I heard it was buy one get one free tonight!" He asked me who said that and I said something to the effect of "thats just what I heard the deal was for all soldiers who just got back from Iraq." My friend threw in that I was actually leaving to go back in 2 days. They guy asked if I was serious and we were talking with him for a minute, when all of a sudden he started strapping us back in and we got to go again for free!!! That guy so rocks! It was awesome. Fortunately it was a slow night and there really wasn't anyone else in line, otherwise I dont think we would of gotten to do that!

So yeah, thats really about it. Im finishing up my packing and cleaning up my hotel room and Im just going to stay up all night. Since my flight is early, I still have to check out of the hotel and drop off the rental car so there really is no point in going to sleep. Ill just sleep on all the flights! Im sad to have to leave, but this is just another step in finishing up this deployment. Before I know it it will be over and I will be back in America once again, with a renewed appreciation of all that is great here!