Back Home…

First, merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! I, for one, am cooked!

It’s about 6 a.m. and I’ve been up since around 4:30 due to jet lag. I crashed about 8 p.m. last night as well.

Well, last we spoke we were leaving Kyrgyzstan and headed for Italy. This was in and of itself an exhausting flight of seven hours. Hard to fly, get off the plane and speak, then fly for another three hours then speak again. Plus, Kyrgyzstan is more than five hours time difference from Western Europe which is more than seven hours difference from Texas. No rest for the wicked!

The shows in Italy and Spain were quite different as there were a lot of family members of service men and women in the audience as well as young kids. Robin and Lewis were a little worried about some of their more risque material but they handled it well. Funny guys are funny regardless of whether or not they drop “f bombs.”

Of course, as I mentioned, it was different not being in an active war zone and looking out to a sea of camouflage. None the less, it was great to see all the families.

After the show in Spain we actually left the base for the first time during the tour. I rang up Johan Bruyneel and he located us a great typical Spanish restaurant in the area. Nice to be back in Spain and eating their great food and having some great Spanish wine. I miss Europe in some ways.

At this point I was dead to the world as we headed back to the base to crash. We had a 10 a.m. flight back to Andrews Air Force Base. Back home to our friends and families. Yes! I was looking forward to hugging my kids a little harder than I had hugged them in the past.

In the next few days I’ll summarize our experience over there. It was one of the most rewarding trips of my life. I look forward to going back and spending time with OUR armed forces. They are heros.