Sarah comes home tomorrow.
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive March 2008:
Sarah comes home tomorrow.
She got to go to New Orleans today and thought it was neat. She wished she could have spent more than just a couple of hours there. We'll hear more tomorrow. She sounded so tired, and has to be up EARLY tomorrow morning. (Saturday)
4:15 a.m. – Meet to Depart for Airport –
MUST BE PACKED FRIDAY NIGHT
4:30 a.m. – Depart for Gulfport Airport
Yikes! She called tonight, at 10:50pm and probably has to be in about 4-4-1/2 hours!
She could stay in guest housing tomorrow night, at the university, but she won't have her computer and barely have a tv, and no company, so she asked if we would come to Oshkosh to pick her up and bring her home, so we are going to do that. I want to hear about her trip, anyway. She probably zonk out in the car!
All things working out how they're supposed to, she should be back in Wisconsin about 10:30am. I told her to call, when she leaves the city, so we can start driving to Oshkosh.
Yeah! Enjoy having her home!!
Have fun !
We were going to pick her up in Oshkosh, but then they had to wait for the vans to pick them up, so we went to Milwaukee, to pick her up. It's the first time I've been to the airport, since my family went to Disney, in 1979! LOL! It really wasn't that scary, once we got there! We got stuck in horrible traffic, just when we got to downtown Milwaukee, and fairly close to the airport. It was so annoying. They are in the middle of a HUGE freeway interchange project and 2 lanes were funneling into one and it was so backed up.
Her group left, about 10 minutes before we got there, so she had to call them, on her phone, to say that she indeed had been picked up. She is 18, so they left her in the airport, as they traveled back to Oshkosh. She was fine.
Short-term parking was $2 an hour, but you get the first 30 minutes for free. It took us 20 minutes to get to her and walk back to the car. Emily and I are all excited that we got to walk on a people mover, like in one of the Geico caveman commercials! Only, leaving the airport, they didn't have the people mover on, so we just walked.
The good thing about going to Milwaukee, is a Noodles restaurant, on the way home! Yum! Sarah was talking a mile a minute and Emily was talking a mile a minute! It's amazing that we got any eating done!
All week, I'd toyed with the idea of just meeting her at the airport, but never really translated that into action. Oh well!
She loved New Orleans. They saw a drunk guy, who later they saw passed out on a bench. They ate at The Gumbo Shop and stopped at Aunt Sally's to buy pralines. She brought pralines home for us. Yum.
They got to hear peoples' hurricane stories and could see plenty of hurricane-damaged stuff, in Biloxi. They didn't have time to go to St. Bernard parish. One guy they talked to, was promised money from FEMA, but then FEMA told him to try to get another type of loan. Then he was turned down for the other sort of loan, and after all that, was turned down by FEMA, too. So he lived in his messed-up house for 9 months. It has been fixed up in the meantime.
They mostly painted houses. She got to go to a house dedication, where someone's house was move-in ready. That had to be nice.
In Biloxi, she said they were building some Condos on the beach. It just makes me roll my eyes!
Dawn, that story about FEMA and the money and the loans is all too typical in the entire Gulf Coast region. Which makes it more maddening to hear how so much of the monies were misappropriated or mismanaged. And on the other hand, there are so many people who just expect handouts and do nothing for themselves. But many, many people have nightmarish stories to tell of insurance non-payments, wind vs. water, FEMA, Road Home money, SBA Loans, etc. I know several of them myself.
Why does the condo construction make you roll your eyes? Just curious......... The Mississippi Gulf Coast is and has always been a touristy area, the casinos have brought a lot of jobs and income to that area. I would think the condo construction will help the economy there?? Maybe not.........considering the mortgage loan crises, etc.
I know in south Louisiana, in the areas that were hit hardest by Katrina (St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Orleans parishes) the rebuilding efforts and progress varies so greatly from one neighborhood/area to another, and there are no rentals available, as people are having difficulty just rebuilding single family homes alone. St. Charles and St. John parish have received an overflow of people needing rentals who were displaced from St. Bernard, Orleans and Plaquemines, and unfortunately we seem to have gotten a lot of unsavory characters, and our crime rate is way up.
I think this was a great experience for Sarah, and you must be proud of her for being a part of it. Glad to hear she is home.
Enjoy having her home! Is she just home for spring break, or for the summer?
I just worry about them being destroyed with the next hurricane, that's all.
Sarah goes back to school today. Her spring break was spent on the trip.
I think it was a good experience, too. It's sad how messed up the relief money is and was.
She had flawless flight experiences, too. Her flights each had a brief layover and all of her planes took off within 15-20 minutes of their appointed time and her luggage made it to Mississippi and back home to Milwaukee! Other than a little turbulence on the way home, flying was good, too.
OK, got it! LOL The thing is, along the Gulf Coast from TX to FL, that is a *risk* every single year, no matter what the building is. I guess you just have to forge ahead.
I guess so! I know people like to live by the water! I know that I enjoy driving past my big lake, which is almost like an ocean, since you can only see a little piece of it, at any one time!
The major issue with condos on the beach (other than the obvious - hurricanes! LOL) is they are TOTALLY unaffordable - of course, the ones you mention are probably at or near the casinos, so only the *financially well endowed* can afford them. It has always been my life's dream to live on the water again (when I was a kid, we lived on Lake Lanier in north GA). And despite the number of hurricanes, DH and I would love to live in FL. However, I'd have to win the lottery to afford a place remotely NEAR the water. Ah well...............
Yeah, there's that issue, too! I live about a mile from Lake Michigan! No way could we afford lakefront property. I'm not sure I'd want it anyway, since people along the lake have to worry about erosion.
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