Korean cake and a small victory

On long bike rides I usually enjoy the conversation
that takes my mind off the tedium. But 10 miles still
passed almost unnoticed last Sunday as I rode among a
pack of Korea bikers, even though I couldn’t
understand a word they said. We rode along the inlet
north of Kunsan to a ridge that climbed 1.5 miles then
became rolling hills for the next 5. At the top of
the first climb, we stopped for some Pokari Sweat and
Korean cake. The Pokari is like sweet Gatoraide, and
was far better than the opaque carbonated rice drink
later on in the journey. As for Korean “cake” – it
was a flat, dark green slab of indescribable flavor
whose the gummy-bear texture was almost too much for
me. However, in effort to be polite, I finished it
while considering how my stomach would respond as I
continued the ride. We stopped at a roadside
convenience shack where the Koreans fed me tomatoes
and monkey bananas. I pondered that life has sure
taken me to some unusual situations, then split off
early from the group to make it to church in a packed
upstairs meeting room where I felt slightly out of
place in my sweaty bike clothes among the well dressed
Koreans and Americans. I smile that Pastor Bill had
the grace to call it “a good testimony” that I’d bike
for 3 hours then show up all sweaty at church… I
sometimes wonder what it’s like to live a “normal”
life, if there is such a thing.

Yesterday they gave me 4 F-117s and 3 other folks to
fly them and kicked us out the squadron door to go
fly. We meandered around the skies near Korea,
peering at various towns and islands through our
infrared sensors. But the greatest victory of the day
was making it back to the field with all 4 of us still
together and not rapidly running out of gas. Normally
this would be standard operations, but with quiet
hours (times when take-offs and landings are
prohibited for noise reasons) and more F-16s than
normal flying from our host airbase, there was usually
a crowd milling around, stacked at different altitudes
and holding a different points in space, waiting their
turn to land while anxiously comparing their amount of
fuel remaining with the sound of the situation on the
radios. We came back early to get a place in the
front of the line and still were lower than ideal on
gas, but unlike the other 5 four-ships that had tried,
we made it over the field with all 4 together. That
still brings a smile to my face. The little things.

Hope you’re enjoying some little things along life’s
way.
Donna