As you all know, this past weekend (May 2 - 4, 2014) was Ryan, erm. Pvt. Smelley's Family Day Celebration. We left Thursday May 1st around 6am and made the unbearably long drive. To get to our hotel, the highway runs right through the center (ish) of Fort Benning, so both Tyler and I LOVED getting our first glimpse of what living on post will be like.
We were not able to see Ryan until Friday morning at Family Day, so Thursday we were on our own to explore the Ft. Benning and greater Columbus, GA area. We went down to River Walk, a huge trail along the Chattahoochee River, I believe the whole river walk is about 16 miles? Don't quote me on that though. The river actually separates Georgia and Alabama. Here's a picture I found online of the directory map.
The yellow line with stars that starts at the bottom left (in Ft. Benning) continues up to the edge of the river on the top right is the whole path. If you follow the 'GEO' in Georgia up to the river, there is red ish brick looking symbols, that's about where we were. Here are some pictures of it.
These are from Thursday, so no Ry yet.
This is pretty much all we did on Thursday. Friday morning, we headed down to Ft. Benning for the Family Day Ceremony! We got to see the awesome overpass that 'divides' Ft. Benning from Columbus.
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| Unfortunately, going down the highway, it is VERY difficult to get a decent picture... |
We arrived with about 15 minutes, found seats, and waited... There aren't TOO many pictures of the ceremony, it wasn't very long. I wish I had taken video, or more pictures. But not knowing what to expect, I was more interested in paying attention.
Ryan is the further point to the right in all of the above pictures.
It was a really awesome ceremony. They started by having a group of soldiers in their PT uniforms come out and show off some of their PT workouts. Then a group of soldiers came out and showed off their formations and cadences. And then 3 soldiers (one was Ry) came out and showed how to clear, disassemble and reassemble their weapons. It was really interesting. Then all 3 platoons came out, they went through a few things (Soldier's creed, national anthem, Army song, etc.) Then they took all of the soldiers back to their sleeping bay, and we waited to finally go see Ry!
Once the doors were opened (again, I seriously slacked and have NO
pictures) we walked in and found Ryan, who showed us his bunk, as well
as his locker. The room was one long room with lockers along every wall
with probably 30 bunk beds perfectly made.
The next set of pictures is from as soon as we walked out, still on post.
Then we decided we were going to walk up to the PX (it was like a small convenience store) The store was set up with all the necessities on the right of the entrance (paper, pens, socks, shirts, etc.) the left half of the store they had not been allowed in before Family Day. That half of the store contained snack foods, candy, energy drinks etc. Funny enough, as we walked up to the PX, there were easily 20 soldiers in Ry's platoon pigging out on sweets and energy drinks.
This picture (above) is Ryan's barracks from the PX (we were up on a hill) If you open up the picture, on the left side of the picture, you'll see a white bus and if you follow that up, you'll see what look like hangars, those are the barrack areas, inside those. Ryan's ceremony took place under one of the awnings, and to get to his sleeping quarters, there were doors right behind us. I believe Ryan's was the furthest left that is seen in this picture.
We went to the PX on 2 different occasions that weekend and got WAY too much.
I got:
Army PT shirt (gray shirt with reflective ARMY across the front)
Digital Camo Padfolio
Digital Camo Toiletry Bag
Digital Camo Airborne Soldier Bear
Tyler got:
2 Army PT shirts
2 Army PT shorts
Socks
Large Digital Camo Padfolio
I think that's it. But I might be missing something small...
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| Expert Marksman! |
Ryan's first request was "FOOD. The greasiest, bad for me food"
Actually, let me preface all of this by saying, his Drill Sargent told them to make their weekend worth it, because he would be working out all weekend, thinking about how the platoon soldiers would not be working out, so they would make up for it when they got back. So there was A LOT of food eating.
We went to Fuddruckers - a burger place. Ryan got a 1lb burger. Yes, 1 pound. plus french fries and soda. It was sickening how quickly he downed it all (with the exception of the last like 3 bites he couldn't finish of the burger) They had only been allowed 10 minutes usually to eat, so he literally inhaled it, I don't think he even tasted it.
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| Tyler went to the bathroom before we got our food, and disappeared, I found him engrossed in the game area. |
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| 1 lb burger |
We then took him back to Riverwalk (where we had gone the day before) because it was so cool, we though he would enjoy it.
Riverwalk is such a pretty place. The old brick buildings are so pretty and some of them have actually been or are being renovated into luxury apartments.
These are some more pictures from along Riverwalk:
Overall it was such a pretty area, and Tyler missed Georgia before we even made it home.
We spent the afternoon hanging out and making dinner.
The next morning, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel, which either didn't agree with me, or I got sick from Ryan (they pass a lot of sickness around with that many guys in such a confined area) either way though, I felt really sick, Saturday morning- Monday night. I stayed at the hotel and the rest went to the Infantry Museum. I obviously don't have any pictures of that since I wasn't there. But I heard it was awesome. Tyler came back with gifts from the gift shop, he brought me a ACU hat, the kind worn by soldiers, and a name tape that said "Army Wife" it was really sweet.
We then let Ryan enjoy his last night of freedom, he had gotten a new phone on Friday, so he was enjoying being able to listen to music and just relax.
We got up Sunday morning, packed everything up, and headed back to post. Ryan was excited to get back to army life, and Tyler and I were NOT looking forward to the ride home. yuck.
xoxo, T & H
