First day on post

Yesterday, while Jack Bauer was working on in-processing, I spent the entire morning wandering around post with the doggies. I started by looking for a good cup of coffee. I found one at the mini mall. Uh, mini? Yep. I think it was 1" scale. The coffee is good enough and sufficient to power me for a few hours.

I had a map with me but I didn't want to rely on it. I believe that the best way to learn a new place is to get lost. So every time I stopped, I unfolded it and tried to figure out where I was.

I really fought my inner voice that told me I shouldn't be going on some of the more remote roads. If there wasn't a marked sign with "RESTRICTED AREA" or "HIGH SECURITY AREA" or "RESIDENTS ONLY," I took the road. For the most part I had no idea where I was going or what to expect. I figured if I was caught some where I wasn't supposed to be, someone would tell me. But of course, that never happened. It was all a bunch of worry in my head.

I found the stables, the ranges, a ton of picnic areas, the dog park, the museum, the historic part of the post, the cemetery, and the entrance to two of the marked canyons.

In the afternoon, I was told, was an appointment to get me transferred to the correct Tricare region. I was expecting this to take 15 minutes. Ha! An hour and a half later, I emerged from a power point presentation (what else could have been done) explaining all the nuances of getting health care on this post, which has a health care center not a hospital. (Mind you the hospital in town is also a "health care center" so does that make it not a hospital? I digress.)

Trying to distill it down into something workable, I think I am supposed to call the appointment desk after 7:30 AM M-F for appointments; if they are full and I need to be seen that day, I call the advise nurse; if it is after hours, I call the PCM (I was hoping for more acronyms than there actually were; darn). Bottom line: YOU MUST CALL SOMEONE FIRST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO WIND UP WRITING A CHECK.

At least we made it someone interesting by sitting in the back row and giving each other running commentary.

Boy, I can't wait to sit through that presentation every single time we move!

After that 90-minute session that could have easily be summed up in 5, we went to look at a house and drive by a few more. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you all about that.