Soto Cano

I never thought that I would compare a military base to heaven on earth! I realize that this a pretty strong statement, but after spending two days there I can honestly say that is how we felt. Now keep in mind this is coming from someone living in a high crime area in Central America with 3 small boys! So my heaven on earth is quite different than yours!!!!!

Soto Cano is a joint (Honduras and United States) military base located about 60 miles out of town. The base is about two miles wide and six miles long. The U.S. military uses Soto Cano as a launching point for its war on drug efforts in Central America as well as humanitarian aid missions throughout Honduras and Central America.

There are currently about 500 U.S. military troops living at Soto Cano. They are unaccompanied (no family with them) and spend anywhere from one month up to a year stationed there. Soto Cano lodging for U.S. personnel consists of “hooches” (they look like a wooden sheds). The "hooches" have no running water, but the showers/bathrooms are just outside (very similar to my kind of camping). Our hooch had a common area in the middle and then 8 small bedrooms off of the common area. Each person had their own room with their own t.v. Cole was beside himself with all the rooms and he would check everyone one of them out. I was glad to see there were no indoor bathrooms, that would of meant I would have to keep Cole out of 8 pottys!

Our "Hooch"

All the facilities, like the post office, library, dining facility, fitness center, pool and commissary, are all about a five-minute walk.

It was amazing the feeling we had to just go out and walk, ride bikes, play tennis and baseball with the kids. It reminded me of being in Virginia this past summer when Cole would wake up at 5:45 and we would walk to Wal-mart to kill some time. This particular morning Cole in the stroller and Reid on his bike (in pj's) went for a long walk/bike ride. We had the mountains surrounding us and we had the place to ourselves except for the few guys out jogging. That afternoon Matt took the kids to the theater they had there, the kids watched Kung Fu Panda.

Graham after a long bike ride

One of the afternoons the kids went to the fire station and they showed them around, and then they squirted them down with water hoses. That might of been the highlight of the trip for Reid.

We had all of our meals in the dining hall, it costs our family of 5 (Cole had his own plate) $15.00 each time. The food was AMAZING! I felt like I was at Luby's Cafeteria, but could get whatever I wanted and how much I wanted. Which turned out to be a problem, I had way too much to eat!!!!

For a military base, it was crazy how "kid friendly" it was. While on our bike ride Reid told me he wanted to move to Soto Cano. I have to agree with him, I think I could live there!

Oh, I forgot to mention that it is free to stay there and you can go as much as you want!!!!! I am sure they will be seeing a lot of us!

I am sure they can't wait to see us again!