Palaces and Fishing

We talked to Eli (and Seth in the background) this morning. Eli had just returned from a trip to Baghdad at 5:00 AM their time. While in Baghdad he and two other soldiers toured around the Green Zone and visited one of Saddam's palaces. They couldn't go in as it is now occupied by ambassadors and other officials, but they were able to walk around on the grounds. Apparently Saddam liked to fish and Eli said there were several man-made lakes on the grounds and since they just happened to have a few fishing poles in the humvee they fished a little at Saddam's fishin' hole. He didn't say if they actually caught anything but did talk about playing with an eel in the shallow end of the lake. It's currently 5:00 PM at Al Asad and the boys are getting ready to go to dinner. Seth will be leaving early tomorrow morning for a trip and Eli is unsure of his next mission, but it will be soon. Eli has been back for 10 days and has spent 5 of those days outside the wire. I've kind of lost track of when they're in and when they're out, but my impression is that the pace of their trips has picked up a little. When I mentioned this to Eli he concurred and noted that is good because it helps the time fly by faster. Seth and Eli love to see the calendar turn to a new month....it's a concrete reminder that time is flying by.