Here I am…as directed to the site by Michael Totten:
February 4, 2004
February 3, 2004
World Travel Sucks
Here is a map of places I’ve been.
I got it at world66, which will allow you to create your own visited country map. My total is only 7%, although it certainly felt like more at times. Just my return trip from Kuwait last year took 72 hours with stops in London, Chicago, and Dallas.
I also built my US map:
I’m not really interested in going to either Alaska or Hawaii unless something happens to force or encourage a trip. I’ve somehow missed the Dakotas. I really want to go there and see the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore. I think it would really be something to go to western Dakota and travel by horse following Custer’s trail to Little Bighorn. I really have a desire as a student of Old West History to make that trek. I doubt it is feasible these days, and the Custer site really doesn’t interest me except as the goal of the trail.
If you have wanderlust, may I recommend the United States. Get a decent US History book and plan an adventure. I can tell you that there are interesting things to see in Europe, but all they really offer is someone else’s history. I’m sure the same can be said of Asia or Africa. See what we have first.
Next year, the wife and I may take a road trip during spring break. While college kids visit here, I think we might drive up the Rio Grande to El Paso, then across New Mexico and Arizona on the southern track, and spend a couple of days in Las Vegas. We’ll take the northern route back and see the Grand Canyon and Painted Desert, high plains of New Mexico and Texas, then back home through Comanche country. Or maybe that trip way up north to the Black Hills–border-to-border?
Birdie–From the Front
well i’m back. not much happening here. went out on patrol today, the locals in a certain area said that if they saw americans driving down their road today (it’s their christmas) they’d ambush them. you know me, i drove that 3 mile stretch of road 4 times, called their bluff and nothing happened. heck and i only had 2 humvee’s and my squad with me and they still did nothing. we’ll go back out there tonight and try and pick another fight. i even had my camera with me to video a firefight, but they were all talk and that’s about it. i’ll talk to y’all later.
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California Golf
Well, the weekend finally ended. I played two rounds of golf and spent the remaining time with the in-laws at their annual Super Bowl Party. Actually, very few actually sat and watched the game, but there was a lot of drinking, singing, and conversing going on. To my knowledge, nobody even saw the “Janet Jackson thing.”
I played pretty badly. Pasatiempo was fun, but overpriced. I had one birdie, two pars, and a complete variety of other scores. The fairways were soft, and all distance came from carry, which made it play longer than the 6500 yards listed for the back tees. Greens were very deceptive, as you would expect from Alister MacKenzie. I sympathize with players at the Masters. Many times I putted downhill, thinking it was uphill, and left myself an even longer return putt.
I played the Bayonet Course in Seaside Sunday. It is an excellent course. I shot 97 for net 81. I placed third in my flight. There were a handful of scratch golfers in the tournament who were also trying to qualify for the AT&T Pebble Beach. The lowest gross score was 71, and lowest net: 71. The greens were tough to read here also. I played this course regularly 25 years ago, and think I could score well once I adjusted to the greens with some experience, but the breaks are really hard to see…until you putt!