Here at Last

Well I'm finally back at Philmont. Debbie and I left at 5:15 A.M. on Monday morning. We drove through a lot of rain to get here. We drove pretty hard and got into Philmont at 4:15 local time to make for a 12 hour drive. We got checked in and got our IDs and medical rechecks done before everything closed at 5:00. We didn't do much that night because we were so tired from the drive.

Tuesday was my official arrival day, so I didn't have anything to do the entire day. Debbie started work and was off with her training group so I haven't seen much of her around. David is an RT this year so he's been here for a while. I met my RT and the rest of my training crew. My RT's name is John and he goes to school with David in Rolla. The rest of the crew seems pretty cool. I think that our training trek will help us to really get to know each other and create some good friendships.

Last night was the opening staff program. We met Mike Fossum, the keynote speaker. He's a NASA astronaut who was in our sister crew from Texas when I came out in 2004. He seemed really cool and gave a great speech. I gave him a copy of the Philmont 2004 DVD and he seemed really excited to see us. That was awesome. I hope his inspirational words will stick with me throughout the summer.

We leave on our training trek today. I haven't had much time off, so there's not much to update. I'll take my camera with me and should have some good pictures by the end of the trek. I applied for Rayado as well, but I won't know if I get ce acpted to be one of the rangers for a while yet. That's all the updates I have time for now. I hope everyone back home is having a good summer!

- Drew