Hoped to sleep through breakfast again, but when I found myself awake in the wee hours, I decided to get up and join a small group of chaplains who have breakfast together on Wednesday mornings.  It was great fellowship, as they say, and fun shop-talk.  Of course, they are all busy preparing for Easter.  I am hoping to attend Chaplain Landon’s “Maundy Thursday” service tomorrow night:  when we walked home together Monday night we talked about his theme and it sounds interesting.

Had an hour to read the Stars and Stripes, our daily newspaper, before heading out with CH Collins and her assistant to Ali Al Salem Air Base.  She has some personnel assigned to her unit who work at this location, about an hour away, so she visits once a week.  I chatted with a long term colleague there while she checked in on her folks and followed up on some issues.  After lunch, she walked me through the various tents and introduced me to people while reflecting on many of her experiences as the chaplain there during the deployment she chronicled in her book.  This is THE location for everyone transiting from Iraq and Afghanistan to go home, and she continues to be moved by the variety of stories, especially those who are traveling on emergency leave for a broad variety of reasons. 

I DID get to see some camels on the drive, but they were too far away to photograph well from a moving car. Am told there will be more camel sightings on my way to Camp Buehring on Friday.   I was able to snap a few of the many mosques along the route- attaching one example.

Forgot to mention my favorite comment on the seder, from our Sabra sailor- she grew up very frum but has not participated in Jewish life for a number of years.  She told me this was the most fun seder she had ever attended.

Today was Temple Chai shopping day- found nice souvenirs for the staff, as well as a table for my office.  I’ve been needing someplace to strategically place tissues in my sitting area, and I found something that I think will work really well in that space.

When we returned to Camp Arifjan, I spent almost two hours cleaning out and organizing the wall locker that contains the Jewish supplies.  It was a disaster area; I’m sorry I didn’t get before and after photos.  Threw out matza from last year (or earlier?), consolidated the Hanukka supplies and books and put away all the leftover seder food for use at upcoming ongei Shabbat.  There is now one shelf that contains all the stuff for Shabbat, which should make the setup MUCH easier.

Spoke to David on the phone- he was with my parents so I got to wish my Dad a happy birthday too!