Next Chapter in the Adventure of Fritz

Howdy folks, I have not been blogging for a while, there have been a few changes in my life since the Boston Marathon. The first change is that I am no longer at FT Bragg (no running on the sisters for a while), I am on my way to FT Riley to do some training prior to deploying to Iraq. I will be an Iraqi National Police Transition Team Leader starting in October. There will be a small team working with me, we will be working with an Iraqi National Police Brigade for a year. We haven't met as a team yet, but will meet up on Monday for the first time, I am definately looking forward to that. I have corresponded with a few of them via email, they sound fairly motivated.


I am looking forward to the mission, it should be a good one. I hope that we can help make the Iraqi National Police Brigade better, this will be a very small part of the larger mission of turning over the running of Iraq back to the Iraqis.


I have been spending the past couple of weeks at my sister Melissa's house in Nebraska, visiting with the kinfolk prior to going to FT Riley. Before that, I spent a week hiking on the Appalachian Trail, hiking from Springer Mountain in GA (the southern end of the trail) to Franklin, NC. That was about 100 miles of serious hiking, some of the fiercest terrain I have hiked, EVER. Big ups to Blood Mountain and Albert's Mountain, they kicked my ass. There were some wicked hard gaps there too, you hike down to the bottom of the gap, then back up to the ridgeline, check the map, and look for the next gap or big ass hill.
This is the big rock that is at the start of the trail, I guess I was expecting a bit more of a set up, but, nothing but a rock, an information kiosk and the ubiquitous White Blaze. I guess all of the good stuff is at Amicola State Park in GA, sure was kind of a "Hmmmmmm" starting.



Two super sweet ladies helped me out with the logistics of the hike, Joyce and Sally. They live in Hiawassee, GA and moved my truck around for me and gave me a ride to Springer. They also made the appropriate noises of concern when they saw the blisters on my feet, Very much appreciated. If you are hiking the southern end of the AT give them a call ((706) 896-9339 or via email at: dirtft2001@yahoo.com). Ask Joyce about her garden, it was a good conversation.




One of the stops along the way was at Neels Gap, it is a Hostel/Outfitters that the trail goes through. Nice place, I had a pizza there and a couple of free hot dogs (amazing what you will eat when you are hungry). Hiker tip: Get there about 5:30 PM, the folks there will give you the hot dogs if you are just haning around, so they don't have to throw them out. Me and a couple of other hikers took full advantage of that.






One of the views from the hike, on this day, it was raining all day, but it cleared off for a second while I snapped this photo. I love seeing the valleys full of fog while I am walking, very cool. That view actually reminded me of one of our missions in Ranger School - - A segment of Ranger School is run out of Camp Merrill, near Dahlonega, GA. We were doing an air assault out, flying low over the mountains, when I looked down, all of the valleys had fog in them, so we saw green mountains with white fog, very pretty. I actually spent a nigt at Camp Merrill, they were nice enough to let me camp by one of the planning bays (same ones we used 20 years ago). Very cool.

I have been spending my time here visiting kinfolk and helping Mark out with his barn. It should have a roof on it this summer. Tomorrow is the 4th of July, probably go watch some fireworks somewhere.

It is my intent to keep blogging during the mission, not sure how that will work, or how frequently I will be able to update the blog, but check it out if you have a slow saturday morning or something.