herzog

I’m a smoker, and I was mildly surprised to find that this city does not allow public smoking, except in very tiny, designated spots.

However, the people are friendly, for the most part, even though there were some incredibly awful people who seemed to really dislike those in uniform… ah, well.

This is the Herzog’s favorite state to hate. We hold our breath every time there’s an earthquake, waiting to see if it will plunge into the ocean or not…

I’ve actually been here, and if I had a choice, I’d visit northern California again, do a little off roading, hiking and camping…

We stopped here on our way back from the Middle East. We were greeted by a huge mob of friendly people at the airport, who fed us and regailed us with stories about day to day life here.

I most definitely want to go back!

Hands down most gorgeous, vital, friendly place I’ve ever visited. And it was by accident! I was going home on leave when my plane lost the ability to feed itself fuel to one of the engines. We limped in to Shannon’s airport and were privileged to spend 26 hours at one of their golf resorts at the expense of Uncle Sam. I have to go back, the experience was wonderful and I completely fell under the spell of the people there!

It was almost scary, the huge class differences! I can’t even begin to list all the insanely expensive inmport cars I saw… But a sign of the times was that the most common vehicles were Mercedes. I saw many Diablos, Ferarris, and so on.

The city itself is very westernized. I went to a McDonalds and had a McArabian, drove by Red Robins, and drooled over their car lots.

The atmosphere at night is that of an extended party. However, if you are an American, be prepared for a bit of snobbish treatment.

Very beautiful area, except when you take a closer look and notice the oil, battery fluids and various other dumped refuse. It gets better the farther away you get from human populations, as is true of most areas. There are some incredible ruins that I wanted to explore, but of course, could not under the circumstances.

I spent a year here, running convoys to various other bases, cities and villages in Iraq and Kuwait. It gets insanely hot in late summer, incredibly wet in the winter, and the rest of the time its just dry, hot and dusty.

Baghdad itself was an amazing city, full of history, romance, and violence few can imagine. The people are friendly, although there are a few who are, understandably, hostile to Americans.

I fully intend on visiting this place again in 5-10 years!

Actually, its pretty cool, if you like small towns. It is right next door to Soap Lake, which hosts an annual Hog Show, and also has an insanely huge lava lamp, which is cheesey but fun.

Ephrata itself is big on parades, very patriotic, and incredibly centered around family and religion. They seem to have more churches than stores, and going by the old adage that you can tell how good or bad a town is by its highest building: church or commercial building, I guess Ephrata is good.