On Pass

I'm back at wonderful Fort Hood, Texas - The Great Place - at least that's what the sign at the front gate declares. I spent the past four days on pass. It was both a welcome relief from training and preparing to cross the water and a nice chance to spend some time with Andrea and the boys.

On Saturday, we stayed local and took the boys to the First Cavalry Division Museum here on post. They enjoyed it, but I think Matthew tapped out early with boredom. Nicholas, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of the tanks, trucks, and helicopters on static display outside the museum. Afterwards, we drove to the Belton Dam. While we were there, we spied a seafood restaurant called the Dead Fish Grill. It looked decent enough and the dining room looked out over Belton Lake, so we gave it a shot. It was an excellent choice. We had the peel and eat shrimp followed by fish sandwiches. All of it was delicious.

Sunday, we decided to drive a couple of hours north to Dallas. We grabbed a bite to eat at the Press Box Grill in downtown Dallas - the food was excellent, but the service was beyond terrible - then headed to the Dallas Zoo. We had given the boys a choice between the zoo and the science museum and they both screamed, "ZOO!!!" in unison. The zoo's high points included the King Cobra, Black Mamba, and the albino Alligators. To round out our time in Dallas, we returned to downtown and took the boys to the site of the JFK assassination. I explained to Matthew who JFK was, explained a little about the assassination, and pointed out the window Lee Harvey Oswald shot from. Then I told him just to file the information away in his brain so that when he learns about this in history class one day, he can dust off his memories and  have a decent visualization of what they're teaching.

The next day, we headed south to San Antonio. Of course, we made the obligatory stop at the Alamo first. Unfortunately for the educational-minded parent in me, the boys immediately spotted the Ripley's Believe It Or Not and Guinness Book of World Records museums across the street. They begged, I gave in, we ended up spending some hard earned money and time looking at the World's Largest Twister Game and reading about the World's Largest Star Wars Memorabilia Collection (it's in England, by the way). We ate lunch at the Chart House, a revolving restaurant at the top of the Tower of the America's. It sits almost six hundred feet in the air and provides the diner with a revolving, panoramic view of San Antonio. After lunch, we wandered the Riverwalk for a bit, took a boat tour, and enjoyed a late dinner of Mexican food.






The last day of my pass began with every kid's favorite thrill - the falling of fresh snow. After remaining snow-free since 1989, Killeen, Texas received somewhere around two and a half inches of powder on Tuesday. The boys made snowmen and we ended the day with a massive, hour-long snowball fight between me, Matthew, and Nicholas. Afterwards, we ordered a pizza delivery and chilled out in the hotel room watching Animal Planet. It was close to midnight when my ride to North Fort Hood arrived and I was forced to say good-bye once again. It was sad but the sadness was offset by how much fun I had running around with the boys and enjoying some romantic time with Andrea.