29 Palms

This is where it all started. This hot, sandy, training area. 29 Palms is the biggest Marine Corps training area you could ever set foot on. Right now, mid December, it's about 40°-50° during the day and about 37°- below freezing every night. When I first hit things off with my now husband, it was here. Late April, early May. We were here for a training exercise. It was hot then. Like, temps almost always a high 90° or above. No humidity. So it was very hot and pretty dry, drastic change from what it is now. I hate the idea of 29 palms. Coming out here for weeks on end, "training". But I love the feeling I get when we first roll up in a convoy, remembering this was where it all started. 

I'm on week two without my husband. I'm doing radio things here with hqbn. He's off doing radio things with tanks. I left a week before he did. He would text me and tell me how he hated sleeping alone. How he almost had to sleep on the couch because sleeping in our bed without me made him miserable.

It's things like that, that remind me how special 29 Palms REALLY is. Aside from the terrible weather, lack of sleep, and always working, 29 Palms will always have something special about it. My husband and I had our first conversations here, even our first kiss. (Kinda gross I know, the field environment really isn't ideal for a first kiss but with us it just kinda happened.) We became so connected here. It's where that first 'spark' went off inside of us making us realize we were meant to be together. 

So, I guess all I'm really trying to do is find the good in the bad. Make this lonely field op seem not as awful by remembering the good that came out of the first time I was here. 

Well 4 more days and I'll be home bound to my double pillow top queen bed and fluffy comforter and warm cozy apartment, with my incredible husband.