Circuitous Travel~Part 1

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Circuitous travel – I had never heard that phrase until we were about to leave Germany (1983) and return to the United States. If you aren’t familiar with that phrase, it means that you will travel from point A to point B, but not in a straight line, i.e. you will make a stop – or several stops – along the way, that are not really related to getting to your destination.

I found the following online: The Air Force defines circuitous travel as any route other than the one that would normally be prescribed by the TMF between places listed in members travel orders.

 All that information to say that, our family took advantage of circuitous travel when we left Germany and returned to the States. We took two weeks leave, and went to England.

After we had hired someone to clean our government apartment – and it was approved “clean” – we were allowed to leave Germany. We had a friend drive us to Ramstein AB (with Karen crying all the way, because she was leaving Brian behind).

Credit Google Search

We boarded a C-130 there.

Credit Google Search

It is a transport plane, and we sat knee-to-knee with each other, in canvas seats, for the time it took to fly to RAF Mildenhall, England.

Credit Google Search

We were given foam ear plugs to wear during the flight – which we really needed. That is a NOISY plane!! I made the mistake of taking one of them out of my ears, just to see how noisy it was – and regretted it immediately! It was really LOUD! So then I attempted to re-insert the foam plug into my ear – and it wouldn’t fit! So I had to endure that noise for the remainder of the flight.

About half-way through the flight, one of the flight crew came around with a cardboard box. It was filled with candy bars, and we took our pick. That was the extent of services on that flight. And that crewman didn’t look too pleased to be doing that job, either. I’m sure he would rather have been flying/navigating/etc. on that plane, rather than passing out goodies to the passengers.

aCredit Google Search and Amazon

We finally landed at RAF Mildenhall in England. Fred had arranged for a car to be delivered to us there. It was a Vauxhall, 4-door sedan, and nearly new, with just a few miles on it. It, of course, was right-hand drive, but was automatic shift. Fred hadn’t driven many stick shift vehicles in his life time, and wasn’t too keen on driving the English round-abouts with a stick shift. So we were glad to have the automatic.

By this time, it was getting rather late in the day. For some reason, Fred had not arranged for a B&B for us to stay in that night. So he began calling those in the phone book, and those the people in the terminal knew about. About the time I thought we were going to have to spent the night in the car, he was able to connect with a lady who said she would put us up, but she had to roust her children out of their beds to do so. So we finally had a bed to sleep in for that night. We had breakfast with them the next morning, and Janet had a few cats to play with and love on before we left.

Fred said it was the most expensive stay of any we had the rest of the trip. But it was worth it!

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #TuesdayTravel, Family Vacation, Military, Military Life