South and North
Had a busy couple of days. Yesterday, we went down south to a couple of FOBs, and today we went north to a base where they have the Iraqi Highway Patrol Academy as it was graduation day there. The trip south is pretty nice, as there is very little traffic on that road, and a lot of open country-side to look at. I even saw some corn and soybeans growing down there (it's very green that way). Also down that way, are what I can only call "salt-farms." I don't know if they're naturally occuring, created by over-irrigation, or created intentionally, but, basically, there are pools of salt-water all along the highway, and as they dry up, the Iraqis scrape muck up and somehow separate the sand from the dirt. That's what this bizarre picture on the left is. There are some guys there, but it's kind of hard to tell with this pic size. Today was fairly uneventful, except that the base up north had a Taco Bell. I had 3 hard-shell Tacos. They were amazing.Guess that's about it for now. TeddY2K out!
posted by TeddY2K at 10:30 PM
4 Comments:
Wow, tacos and mocha freezes. At least you're getting fed decently over there .
Take care of yourself
Hey, son.
It's great that you get to see some interesting things on your trips (and even better that you get back to your base safely each time). Trish may know something about the salt process, since she has been in that region of the world on educational trips. I don't suppose the army lets you stop in the middle of a trip and talk to farmers of any sort...although if we knew more about their culture it would help. Unfortunately, it's easy to make assumptions about people we don't understand.
Keep learning and keep safe.
Using Google, it appears that Iraq is responsible for about 100,000 tons of rock salt production annually. There was little information about their salt farms, though there was information on salt farms in general, particularly in Egypt.
Nice picture. These postings really help keep us in touch.
Be careful out there.
Just checking if I am bright enough to post comments now.
Really cool picture. Guess we all need to get out more often, only under better circumstances.
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