Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Vacation time and mail



We are headed out on a three week vacation. We are traveling about 1.5-2 hours west. LOL We are looking forward to seeing a few RV friends. We will be in the same park with Don & Evelyn.  Evelyn is one of the folks who makes me look good in writing. She has the combination of errors to get Johnny ready to publish.

They had to work proofing this one. I even doubled up on some of the pages, and used most of the same chapter twice. Boy, am I good!?!?  LOL

Johnny is going to be a GOOD small  book, a fast read in large print.

Tomorrow’s trip will take us by our mail forwarding service so we will stop for a mail call. That saves postage. That allows us to visit a short time with the folks who handle our mail.  US Pak and Ship has a good crew.  We have had very few problems getting our mail ‘second hand’.

 Above is what the Navy pilot sees at sea in goo weather. Below is transferring cargo and mail.



Getting your mail every 2 or 3 weeks takes some getting used to.  In the USN mail wasn’t prompt, but much better than one would expect. Even at sea, when on an air craft carrier we received mail once or twice a week via mail plane.

There are several ships that accompany an aircraft carrier. Once the Mail plane lands the mail was sorted. One of the Ships helicopter crews delivers the destroyers and support ships mail.
 The crews make it look easy, but it is very dangerous. Below is high lining a man.

If we were taking on fuel, ammo or supplies, we also delivered their mail, but they got theirs by a high line stretched between the ships. We also transferred men via high line. The ‘high line’ is something like a ‘zip-line’.
 If it was close a religion’s ‘holy days’ many times we high lined our chaplain over for services.  Once in rough seas in the North Atlantic our ships swayed together and we ‘baptized’ our chaplain in cold salt water.  He laughed about it.
(A baptising on deck at sea)

Military Chaplains are well respected. Chaplains must know many religions customs and practices. Many times they do different religion’s services. The simple one is a Catholic or Protestant chaplain will do the services for both denominations. The Chaplain’s Corps is not large enough to have all religions available at every base and ship.

Some of you remember Ora, she is a sweetheart and married to Mixon, a retired Army Chaplain. One reason we met Ora is she also has a Cochlear Implant. I was a candidate, and wanted to pick her brain. We had a great visit and boy do they have some tales.  I miss Ora’s blog.
Nite Shipslog  

 One of the first amphib cars
 EArly motor home
 And the mobile church for the motor home folk

6 comments:

betty said...

Safe travels and enjoy your time with friends!! I'm going to be doing a blog post soon about mail, but all I can say is we could perfectly go fine between 2-3 weeks without getting mail based on what comes in our mailbox :)

betty

TARYTERRE said...

Here getting mail is the high point of each day. I can't imagine only getting it once in a while.

Paula said...

I'm with Taryterre the mail is the high light of our day too. Sometime we look down the street to see if the mail truck is at the cluster of boxes at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I vote for Ora to write in her blog again. Very interesting blog about how the mail is delivered aboard ship.

Lisa said...

2 or 3 weeks???? I pigeon is quicker than that! haha.
Yall have a fun and safe trip.
We plan to take a trip to the beach this weekend but we are watching the weather. If its gonna be too cold or rainy, we are going to wait till NEXT weekend.

Safe travels
Lisa

Mevely317 said...

Boy, this brings back memories of being at camp ... at grandma's (etc.) and waiting to hear my name at 'mail call.' If we check our mailbox once every two weeks, that's a lot. (SAD)
Have scads of fun on your vacation!

Dar said...

We also look forward to our mail, so cannot imagine getting it only once in a couple weeks. Now days, with computers making a lot of deliveries, there is still nothing finer than a hand written letter from a friend. It's so rare now. I don't like it. Thanks for sharing another part of your nautical life. Have great visits with your friends.
hugs from up north. We tapped a few trees today...maple syrup season has arrived, tho slowly.