March ARB to Travis to Charleston to Rota

We had planned our annual trip to Germany to start about 21 April when there was a flight scheduled from March to Dover. There were no seats on it so we slipped a week and planned on a flight to Charleston. No seats on that so we decided to go through Travis. About two weekends a month there is a shuttle (usually a KC-10) that comes down from Travis on Friday afternoon and picks up a bunch of reservist (30-40) and takes them to Travis for their weekend duty. There is also a C-17 that leaves March on the same Friday afternoon and goes to Phoenix (Williams) and Nellis and brings reservist to March. As far as I can tell there is no connection. On Sunday afternoon the process is reversed and the reservist are returned from Travis and returned to Williams/Nellis. There is almost always seats on all these flights.

We elected to take the KC-10 Sunday afternoon to Travis as it would be empty and the reservist would no longer be filling up the quarters at Travis. There were four of us with about 50 airline seats. We had reservations in the new hotel and they held it for us as we got in after 18:00 using the credit card they had on record from my stay a year ago. I had a terrible time contacting the hotel as they have not yet ironed out their telephone problems. I usually had to go through the base operator. The hotel is really nice but when I stayed at Travis before I usually had a suite with a stocked fridge, micro, coffee maker and two big TVs. The hotel rooms are OK but the fridge is not stocked and it is not nearly as roomy as a suite. They do have lots of stuff for sale at the desk such as drinks, wine, and micro wave sandwiches. There is a computer room with broadband access. The telephone has a button for the terminal recording.

There was a C-5 scheduled for Dover/Ramstein that we planned on taking. It was broke and we checked in two or three times and had to reclaim our baggage. They have lockers so we did not have to drag all our bags to the hotel. (10 minutes walk) We ate lots of our meals at the mess hall which was just 5 min up the street from the hotel. Then there was a C-5 to McGuire and we planned on going there and getting a rental car to Dover. There were only 5 seats and we were number 5-6. At one time I had room reservations at 4 bases: Dover, Charleston, McGuire, and Travis plus a car rental at McGuire. Finally we got tired of waiting for the Dover flight to go and took one to Charleston/Rota. So on Thursday night we arrived at Charleston and of course the C-5 broke. It was about 0200. Two other people were with us. A good person who had just come in from Hawaii saw our problem (they were going to kick us out of the terminal) and unloaded his wife and kids and luggage from his van and drove us to the billeting office. I still had a reservation but the O-6 with us did not and I got the only room left in the BOQ. He did get a room in another building.

We got out the next afternoon and, after refueling off a KC-10 over the dark Atlantic, arrived at Rota on Sat. I had reservations for a week in the Navy Lodge as well as three days in the BOQ. We went to the BOQ first as it was $38 a day and the Navy Lodge was $68 a day. The BOQ had a suite with A/C and a fridge, micro and coffee maker. We took the BOQ. There was a laundry room down the hall. They made us renew every three days but never made us change suites. It was about 15 min. walk to the terminal where there was a KFC/Taco/grill. It was also about 15 min to the pizza place/golf course. This was near the gate that went into Rota and you could walk to the peak of the peninsula in about 15-20 minutes. There were beaches on both sides of the town with the most beautiful ones on the west side. Lots of cafes overlooking the beach where you can eat and drink in a great location. The timing of the Spanish culture takes some getting used to. Every store closes at 13:30 except the cafes and there is a rush hour. Nobody eats lunch until about 15:00 or later. At about 17:30 there is another rush hour as people go back to work and stores stay open until 21:00 – 22:00. Dinner starts at 22:00 or later. Retires are allowed to eat in the galley (dining hall) and we did a few times. Ilse did not like to be the only female there. We had lunch on Mother’s day with grilled rib-eye steak and lobster tails and all the trimmings and it cost us $3.05 each. That is what it cost for every lunch. The pizza palace had good Italian food. We spent some afternoons sitting on the golf clubhouse patio enjoying a cool breeze and beer. We were not allowed to use the exchange or commissary but we could use the exchange annex which was just around the corner from the BOQ. There was a Subway and every kind of drink and canned food and frozen dinners. Everything except fresh food. Just outside the base we found a small grocer that sold fresh melons and fruit and dry cured ham. The cured hams were the greatest thing. I ate lots of ham and melon. There were whole hams hanging from the walls of all the grocery stores by the hundreds. I would have dearly liked to have been able to have brought a couple home with me. Serreno ham here costs about $4.00 per ounce and over there I could have bought a whole ham, including the hoofs, for about $15.00. People all over Europe eat dry cured ham from Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. Our FDA thinks that a ham that has not been cooked in not fit to eat.

We made some trips by bus to some neighboring towns, like Cadiz, and one trip to Malaga to see an exhibition of Picasso that was the biggest ever. We got a chance to see the buildup of the coast that is going on. I would not want to live there anymore. Many of the Germans are moving out and the English are moving in.

We found the place to be very clean and well taken care of. Every restroom I saw was spotlessly clean whether it was in a fancy hotel or a small cafe. The beaches are clean and groomed. There are places to wash the sand off and clean tiled restrooms. The weather was great, not too hot or cold. Our room had A/C but we never used it. We opened the big windows to the fresh Atlantic ocean air. The last two days there was a front coming through and the wind was strong and it was over cast. We were lucky we did not go to Germany because the weather there was awful the whole time.

When we arrived at Rota it looked like a C-5 base. There were about 6-8 C-5s on the ramp. All the parts they were waiting for must have arrived on the same plane because 2 days later almost all were gone. There were lots of flight leaving for Norfolk, Charleston, and Dover. The flight we planned on taking was going non-stop to Travis but, of course, it broke. By the time it was fixed, a body had arrived from the Sand Box that had to be dropped off at Dover so we had to stop there. We departed Rota at 13:00 local and made a fast (for a C-5) turnaround of 3 hours and arrived at Travis about 21:00 with a 9 hour time change.

Of course, I had a reservation at Travis and we had a bottle of wine and tried to get a little sleep. There was an air-evac flight next morning with a 10:15 show time going to MCAS Miramar. I did not sleep much and went down to bring up breakfast about 07:30 and called the terminal about 08:30 and found out that the roll call was now at 08:50. We grabbed our bags and ran. We made it in plenty of time and at roll call my e-mail sign up over thirty days before, of which I had a copy with me, got us seats 5 & 6 of the 7 seats available. The one hour flight to Miramar got us there about 13:00. A sailor on leave with his 3 year old son came with us from Rota and lived near where we live. I had a car reserved and upgraded it to a larger one and we shared. We were gone 26 days. A neighbor drove me out to March to pick up my car. The 25 year old Mercedes diesel, with 244,000 miles on it, cranked on the first try.

We are already planning our next trip. To Germany again. This time we might even get there.