On the road again.....

After all my years in Southern California I swore I would never commute again but lately it seems like that is what I do. Thanks God the Army lets us use SUVs in Kuwait instead of HMMWVs. My ass could not take that.

Sometimes I just take some quick snaps as I am driving. The first one is an intersection of a paved road (Iron Horse) and an unpaved road (Dallas). Each has its own particular type of danger. Iron Horse has nutcase locals in Mitsubishi pick ups transporting sheep and doing about 150 KPH and Dallas has new potholes and ruts every time you traverse it.

This second pic is from some Kuwaiti Air Force junk. It is an A-4 Skyhawk which was a top of the line Navy/Marine close support aircraft from the 60s up until the early 90s. I'm not sure if that is battle damage from the Iraqi invasion or cannibalising of the airframe but it is an American made jet which has met a sad fate in Kuwait.

You saw the A-4 in action as it was the OPFOR (Opposition Forces) jet in TopGun. It was a really nimble aircraft with fighter characteristics except for its landing gear. It had an ungainly appearance on the ground as it had long, skinny landing spars because of all the ordinance it carried.

This last shot is a twilight snap of soldiers getting ready to leave the relative safety of Kuwait and head North to Iraq. This is the last safe sunset they will see for a year.

I like the color in this and what is most amazing to me is that all of these photos were taken with my telephone camera. It is just not handy to carry around a DSLR all the time but this is with me 24/7.