The last few days have been pretty crazy with bad weather and long hours... but this exercise is SOOO interesting! Since my move from an Operational Weather Squadron at Barksdale to a base weather flight at Lakenheath, I have loved actually being a part of the flying operations and interacting with the pilots who come in for weather briefs. But Green Flag takes it even another step further: I am physically in the middle of all the planning and debriefs, so I know exactly what is going on and how the weather is affecting every part of their operations. It has been like a firehose of learning, and I love it. Spending so much time around all the aircrews tunes me in to what they are concerned about and what information they need most from me. Plus, they are just really interesting to hang out with! They talk about flying a lot, so I have learned so much about their career field, training, operations, and plenty of war stories.
CeCe and I moved from our hotel to base lodging today in preparation for Red Flag, which is a bummer because the fighter squadron is staying at the hotel, so it will be a lot less convenient to hang out with them. However, there are some pros, like being able to run on base whenever I want and not having to drive 30 min to get to and from work. I have been enjoying dinners at restaurants I miss in England, like Panera last night, where I was reunited with the amazing Sierra Turkey sandwich and bought several specialty bagels to use for breakfasts. Still on the list to accomplish in the next 2.5 weeks: Papa John’s Pizza, Quizno’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Macaroni Grill, Red Lobster, and several others.
Another thing I have missed in England is good music, and I have been in heaven since plugging into XM radio on the flight over and in our rental car here. As much as I love England, and as fun as it is to listen to the British DJs talk, I must say their music is fairly awful. It is all dance/club/rap/R&B and weird combinations of those. I am extremely thankful for my FM transmitter to play my MP3 player in the car on the way to work. Here, I turn on the radio and hear Daughtry, Nickelback, Shinedown, etc… and it is glorious. I heard a brand new song by Lifehouse (my favorite band) yesterday and nearly drove off the road, I was so excited.
Weather has been up and down here, but on Saturday I squeezed in a run at a beautiful 57 degrees. I got lost while trying to follow an on-base running route, but ended up running past the Thunderbird hangar and saw 9 gorgeous T-birds parked in a perfect line outside. So cool! The jury is still out on whether I would ever want to be stationed here, but it is a pretty awesome TDY location so far. We have been too busy to do any sightseeing, but I think we will have a day or two off this weekend in which I hope to rectify that. So no more pictures for you today, but hopefully soon.
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