That's Seaman John Crego to you!!!

Okay, today seemed almost cluster-ish at points, but it was all worth it!! We were right on time, but saw first hand why the shuttle leaves at 7 am. There was a butt-load of people trying to get into the graduation. I'm glad we drove in Vinnie's car (oh yeah, more about fun in Chicago later).

I don't have any pictures of the crowd waiting in line to get in because that was prohibited and there were enough Navy security guys that I wasn't going to take a chance on losing my camera. Suffice it to say, each graduating recruit could invite 4 people. They graduated 978 sailors in this cycle and I think they all invited 4 people and then some. Here's a shot from inside the graduation hall (I forget what it's called):

Okay... this give you an idea of how big the hall is. There are 8 graduating classes today. They do this every Friday - really wild if you think about it. Unfortunately we are setting on the opposite end from John, so we couldn't see him. Funny moment - we had to walk around the building to get to the seats were were at and he marched right past us. No pictures due to the security, but Teresa was all like "LOOK LOOK RIGHT THERE" and they all looked alike to me, it was hilarious. After about an hour, they made the announcement everyone was waiting for ...

LIBERTY CALL!!

After that it was a madhouse. Luckily once we got to the floor it was relatively easy for John to find us rather than us finding him. Of course I have no more pictures of the ceremony or John on the base. Here's one of him back at the hotel:


Don't he look sharp? Of course I have to toss in one of him with his biggest fan (Emma herself)!


Immediately afterwords we left base and went to the Full Moon Diner that was across from the hotel. Amy (his mom) got a migraine so we took her back to the hotel and we sat around for a bit chilling out while John spent some quality time - with his laptop and Zune. Can't fault him for that - 2 months with no music short of marching diddies.

More a little later. Need to organize thoughts!

Train ride? More like train wreck!

Okay - we are finally at the hotel out in Great Lakes, IL. This place is kind of BFE if you know what I mean. Take a look at it on google maps, you'll agree. Drive 20 minutes in any directions and there are good sized towns. This place seems almost truck-stoppish.

About that train ride! Who ever that that shit was romantic is out of their freaking minds. Due to the seating arrangement we sat in the front row. Lots of leg room - no tray table. Mind you we were right next to the door and the next car up was the lounge car. So on a pretty regular basis SLAM... door open.. SLAM door closed! Yeah, and if that wasn't bad enough, the car was dark, but not by us - a nice halogen beam light to show the door lit us up really nice. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a chiropractic appointment in Chicago.

This is how I describe it: Imagine riding in an airplane seat, mounted in a pickup bed, going down a bumpy road occasionally making sharp turns in any direction.

13 hours of that! Oh yeah, the train was an hour late getting into Rochester, should have known something was up.

Now let's talk about the hotel! FFS! We spend the extra money for the Jacuzzi suite, it will be fun for all of us - especially Emmers - she'll love the bubbles! First of all the TV is a POS with crap reception for having DISH TV. UGH! So we start turning down the bed and Teresa notices a HUGE "stain" of something on the box spring. Vomit? Blood? It's dry and that's all I can tell you. SIGH - I'll take that side. She goes the other side and what does she find in between the bed and night stand? ROACH MOTEL!! YES!! That's right... time to change rooms. Oh, all of the King rooms are booked? Bummer, looks like well be getting a refund (more on that later) and moving to a smaller room. Oh well. Tomorrow is the big day!

Heading out!

Okay - it's time to go. We're all packed and ready to go! An exciting moment for us all - first time train rides and going to Chicago!

We are all very twitchy knowing that we will soon be talking to John. I'll do my best to post from Chicago!