I woke up this morning to check this blog and our web site, certain there would be a flurry of activity. I figured this new activity would be everyone scrambling to read my story. Well we got a little bit, not as much as I hoped. Homes for Heroes Foundation has been blogging now for about 10 days so I am not too disappointed. I do know though that the stories are great and will continue to draw people to the site. Now if I can just get some of you uniformed heroes to start leaving a few stories relating to the lighter side of uniformed life. But in the interim, my wife sent the following video along. This video should be part of all Police training. It is critical to any cop that may find themselves in a high speed chase. Its short about 35 seconds, but all need to see.
Hey, I had mentioned yesterday that another foundation was meeting with Homes for Heroes Foundation. The meeting was with our local Bremer Bank. They are a bank that is owned by the Otto Bremer Foundation. We learned that the foundation puts more money into the community on an annual basis than the big name banks. (a stagecoach comes to mind) The meeting was to go over our new Homes for Heroes Foundation and if there was anything Bremer Bank could do for us to get us rolling. Very productive meeting and we had learned a lot.
Yesterday was a busy day for Homes for Heroes, we had received a huge amount of calls, from all over the states in the morning. Some from Texas, some from Oklahoma and a couple of locals here in Minneapolis. For our small staff it was quite a day trying to get these Heroes hooked up with our affiliates so they can get into homes. Something we are learning here is that there are some unique accents out there in this great country.
Well, where were we last…. Oh yeah, me and my buds were standing on a foot wide ledge about 100 feet up on a vertical face of Mount Washington.
Mount Washington
And there just happened to be a thunderstorm in full swing. Winds gusting up to 50 or 60 mph with sustained winds of about 30 mph. Not the best place to be hanging out with a bunch of first time climbers. Okay if you need to get caught up you can read yesterdays beginning. Now remember, we are trying to find out how two Marines ended up naked in the same sleeping bag.
So after we had decided it would be better to go up than down in the storm, we had to sell the idea to the rest of the team. Well there was some arguing, but mother nature in the end made the decision for us. A couple of lightning flashes and some really loud thunder, got us moving up to where the shelter was. This was a very interesting climb. It wasn’t the stuff you see on TV, but when you have to climb with wind, rain and a 45 pound pack on your back, things at times can get a little nerve racking. We spent about another 2 to 3 hours climbing. At times we had to climb, then stop, drop a rope and bring the packs up. Then more climbing. The whole time the weather never let up. Some had attempted to put on rain gear, but soon found out that the Marine issue rain poncho is not the best thing to be wearing while trying to climb in a thunderstorm. It tends to want to blow up in your face when the wind blows. Also you tend to step on it a lot.
But finally we got to the top!!! No major injuries, a few cramps, and some chapped hands, and all of us were shivering.. We were in pretty good shape, so we made our way to the observatory visitors center. There we had an opportunity to get some warm food in our bellies and dry clothes on. Well most of us. One fellow decided that putting your spare clothes in plastic bags was a waste of time because his pack was supposed to be water proof. So after 11 of us were in dry clothes, tummies full of hot chocolate and chicken soup we started to get ready for the decent to the other side of the mountain to our planned camp ground. The wet guy still was shivering, so we sat down inside and let him warm up a bit. And there ladies and gentlemen, we will have to wait for the next installment of how two Marines ended up naked in the same sleeping bag.
Until then, semper fi.
