Wonderful Wisconsin

Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin brings back a lot of memories for me, which is somewhat strange, because I've never been here before. But I have been by here many times on the interstate and thus, the memories. Many of our summer vacations were spent on Long Lake, in northwestern Wisconsin. Ft. McCoy is right on the interstate where we came up from Peoria and Tomah was a ritual rest stop, mostly because of the Humbird cheese shop there. I can still remember the toys in the corner that I would try my hardest to convince my parents that I HAD to have something. There were toy bows and arrows that never lasted the week of vacation, little toy indian drums, rubber knives, cap guns, and all the other things that a little boy just couldn't live without. As we pulled into Tomah for lunch on this trip, I looked across the interstate and sure enough, there was the cheese shop. I hope to get over there just once on this trip before we leave. Ft. McCoy hasn't been too bad, so far. We have Week 1 in the books and the training has been a lot better than what we did at Omaha. Omaha was a lot of administrative stuff, the training here has been much more practical in nature; drivers training, weapons instruction, night sight familiarization, and that sort of thing. It makes the days go by fast and that is always a good thing. One of the downsides is that internet access is a little (ok, a lot) on the slow side, so no Skype and very little chatting is possible, so I do really miss being able to instantly access family and friends. The good news is that overseas I will have fairly good access to internet, so this is a temporary setback. The barber shop does leave a bit to be desired. I don't think I've had hair this short since Plebe year at West Point. At least now I know which barber to NOT go to! I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm really proud of how Erin is getting along with all of this. She has been handling the challenges of being a single mom like a pro. Not only doing the single mom thing, but also building a new practice office, preparing to move households, and if that wasn't enough, she got Lasik this week! What else can we pile on her while I'm gone? She really is a rock, just one of the many reasons why I love her. I even tried to send her some Godiva Chocolate from the Mall of America as a surprise, but it arrived a big soupy mess. I guess the people in Minnesota aren't used to shipping things to places that are typically hitting the 100 degree mark in June. I was pleased though that they quickly and gladly credited back my credit card. Well, that is about all that is new on this front. If you care to leave a comment on the blog, please feel free. We would like this to be an interactive forum. Thanks for reading!