It’s always a lot of fun to meet those one-in-a-million type of girls who just blow me away with sheer awesomeness, the kind with a wicked smile and big bright eyes. The kind with a sense of humor that both rocks me back on my heels and brings me back for more with a smile on my face. The kind with a passion for life and adventure, the refreshingly uncomplicated and entirely confident kind.

Yup, I had forgotten that such a creature existed until I met one and spent a few days uncovering layer after layer of incredibly endearing personality and surprises. But...always a but, life dealt the usual dirty card and *BAM!* she ends up hundreds of miles away doing secret squirrel stuff on almost no notice. This damn job really gets to me sometimes when it comes to getting in the way of anything approaching normal in my life. Ah well, it will be more than worth it when I meet the goals that I’ve set for myself by being here.

So now I’m breaking out the ol’ heartstrings tuning kit to get myself back into my normal desert-dwelling dude state of mind. I need a dog! But before that happens I need to buy a house, before that I need to finish up here...so I guess that just leaves me with the gym as my sole outlet for frustrations.

Tomorrow is a nice long day though; I’m looking forward to that. All the way out west to the Shindand area and then north to Herat and then back again. The bottom line is that life is still good.