Untitled Document

20 Jan 2001

Mission Complete

I wondered about Captain Cook, and how he found this place on his way to the grave on the Big Island of Hawaii.

I had begged off from the scheduled activities of the STAFFDEL. They understood. The schedule had us on for just another STAFF dinner, hosted by people suspicious of us, slightly fearful, but eager to get their two-cents in about the injustices of higher headquarters.

I had kin in town, my sister, who I had not seen in a long time.

I wouldn't say estranged, or perhaps I should, since the ex and her had got into it over something or other years before, and what with her here and me elsewhere, we had not seen each other in a very long time.

It was a warm meeting at a neutral location, a bustling restaurant not far from the Captain Cook. We examined a lot of baggage and decided it really did not amount to all that much. She seemed to be doing fine, and I liked her new husband. She had made a life here in this Northern town so far away, and appeared content.

I got home late, in complete darkness. I watched for bears, but all I saw as I walked were signs advertising counseling for domestic abuse and alcoholism, which apparently are the winter activity of choice here.

It was a very strange old hotel. I walked through the silent corridors with the murals of the Good Captain in his days of health, meeting exotic people. I took the elevator to the eighth floor where there appeared to be water damage to the rugs of the corridor and the suite I was assigned.

But the furniture was substantial, decorator stuff, and the bed was tall and enormous and the television was concealed in a cabinet with extraordinary wood inlays.

I opened it and watched some of the incomprehensible local news, or incomprehensible to me, anyway. I had a nightcap in the room and slept like the dead under the rich tapestry cover of the gigantic bed in the Captain Cook.

I rolled out of the big bed and blinked. It was six in the morning, time to get ready to go home.

I lashed things together as best I could. The extra bag I purchased in the market at Namdaemun made it awkward to carry the hanging bag and the roll-around and the briefcase. I had no other arms, but presently that was not going to matter. I did the best I could and got down to the lobby to see the other Long Marchers in various states of repair.

We generally got breakfasted and generally checked out and generally found ourselves in the van and headed for the Anchorage Airport.

We departed Anchorage presently, drifting out over the white vastness of Alaska.

We made acceptable time to Salt Lake City, and changed planes for the run into Dulles International.

We were on the ground promptly at 10:45 PM, dark again, and chill. We had traveled half-way around the world and seen all manner of things.

I was dead-assed tired and dragging. Now there would be trip reports to write, and travel claims to file. Close out the action items, do some follow-up questions and finalize the notes for the STAFFDEL leader.

But there was something else that happened in the darkness there at Dulles, and unfortunately it is another one of those things I would have to kill you for if I disclosed it.

So after that business was done, that was it. Mission Complete, or "MC" as we put it in the last block in the travel claim as the reason for the last stop on a trip.

Farewell to Asia, I thought.

But it was not going to work out quite that simply. There were a number of issues that needed fixing this year, and a lot of baggage to move.

But I will get to that presently, in the fullness of time.

There is no hurry. Not now.