May 26, 2011 @ 9:51 pm :: Home
Preparation!
In less than 18 hours we will
be on our way for our Gulf Coast Road Trip. How
exciting...eh? It will be great. This
trip is my reward for finishing my Accounting degree.
I have officially
graduated from St. Kates. The graduation ceremony was
Sunday. It was very nice. I got my diploma cover and got
my metal....hum I wonder where I put that. I got my final
grade...an A of course. I finished with a 4.0 GPA for all my
courses. How cool! Well it is time for bed. I
have an early start with a 5:15am wake up call for my morning
workout. Than I have to drive Eric to work, take my car
the airport off site parking lot, take the shuttle to the
airport, take the light rail train downtown, work for 4 hours,
take a bus to the Shakopee park and ride and than pick Eric up
from work. All that before the trip officially starts.
Busy day!!!
May 27, 2011 @ 10:07 pm :: Waterloo, IA
Iowa
again...
What a long day!! We are crashing in Waterloo, IA.
We started our road trip at 4:30pm when we picked up Eric at
work. We stuffed the minivan and than we were on our way.
Nothing too exciting happened. We got to Waterloo at 9pm
on fumes (the gas light came on right by the hotel). Early day
tomorrow so good night!
May 28, 2011 @ 8:15 pm :: Marion, AR
Mississippi Valley driving...
Not a very exciting day. Drove through southeast Iowa, all
the way through Missouri along the outskirts of St. Louis and
most of the way through Arkansas....well it is only 60 miles of
Arkansas that we are driving through. We had a downpour
for about an hour of the drive. It was very challenging
but we got through it. The sisters kept us entertained
with many games of Bingo and Trivia. Tonight we are
staying just outside of Memphis. Tomorrow is
Graceland and New Orleans and a lot more driving.
May 30, 2011 @ 7:34 pm :: Biloxi, MS
Fresh burnt skin
Welcome to the Gulf Coast. It is very nice but you can see
Katrina was here. Yikes. Hugh 15 floor hotels sit in
shambles, house foundations with the houses wiped out.
They have started rebuilding which is good to see but six years
later the devastation is still very visible. So yesterday
was the busiest day so far. We started at Elvis'
Graceland. Interesting but I'm not a big Elvis fan so it
wasn't high on my list. The mansion was much slower than I
expected. After that we drove to New Orleans. We did
a quick walking tour of the French Quarter and than got the heck
out of there. I'm no big fan of New Orleans either.
We arrived at Biloxi around 8pm and had a bit of problem with
the hotel parking, checking in and food. Today was a great
day but also sad. Eric and I took the hour ferry to Ship
Island. It is a barrier island 11 miles off the coast of
Mississippi and is part of the Gulf Shore National Seashore.
What a beautiful day! On the island is a Fort
Massachusetts. Very interesting. We did some
swimming in the warm Gulf waters and relaxed on the beach and
fry my legs, feet and head. Ouch!
After 4 hours on the beach we took the return ferry and
eventually got Eric to the airport for his flight home. :-(
I miss him already.
May 31, 2011 @ 7:50 am :: Biloxi, MS
You evil machine!
Good morning!!! What a sun-shiny day. My mom and I have
been up since 6 am. And since the pool isn't open, really
nothing is open yet, we had no choice but to go down to the
casino. I lost my fortune and now we are waiting for the other
sisters to wake up. I lost $30 of my own money and $20
that mom gave me to play. Is that a sign of a gambling
problem when you give other people your money to play? I'm
joking! But the machines are not very nice, they are evil
really. This reminds me why I hate casinos. My $30
could have bought 5 gallons of gas, some sunscreen for my
already burnt skin and an A&W Rootbeer. But, alas, I gave
it to the Harrah people. Atleast with the casinos in Minnesota
I'm giving the Native American cause. Here is the already
rich people. Argh! We leave for Orange Beach, AL today.
From what I hear the beaches are really nice there. I
guess we will see.
May 31, 2011 @ 10:01 pm :: Orange Beach, AL
Sugar sand beaches
After breakfast, I finally won some money on those evil
machines. $64 on pull on the Wizard of Oz penny machine,
Woo Hoo! We checked out of the hotel and made our way to
Alabama. Here is my gripe, who puts the "welcome sign"
behind a tree? Seriously Alabama, get with the program!
How stupid! So I didn't get the sign, I was a bit mad...I
even said f-you Alabama on Twitter. My words to Eric in a
text were not as nice. We made our way down to the Dalphin
Island Ferry to Fort Morgan, AL. It was a nice 45 minute
ride across the Mobile Bay. There was this baby that
absolutely loved my mom. Mom said that baby was being held
by grandma and the baby reached out for my mom so the grandma
handed her to my mom and the baby girl just cuddle up to my mom
and wouldn't let go. How bizarre. Apparently my mom
looks just like her babysitter and must have thought it was her.
Very cute! We got to Orange Beach, AL at 1pm which was too
early for check in so we ventured to Florida. Grace was asking
for Denny's so I found a Denny's for late lunch. Then we
drove down to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola to see the
Pensacola Lighthouse. I climbed up the 177 steps to the
top for some great views for the Gulf Coast. Awesome!
We made our way back to Orange Beach for some swimming and
walked around the beach. Very nice day!
June 1, 2011 @ 4:13 pm :: Orange Beach, AL
Surf and drive
I was up at 5:25 am for a sunrise that was non-existent.
:-( I went back to bed and actually slept in...until 8 am.
We are staying at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Orange Beach.
It is amazing! It just opened a few weeks ago and the
whole hotel is awesome. They upgraded us to a corner suite so
our balcony wraps around the building...very cool...we have a
lounge area with a couple chairs, couch, and a table for playing
cards. These sisters...all they want to do is play cards.
I've been very successful, I don't think I've lost yet.
After the awesome complimentary hot breakfast, I went in for a
dip in the bath temperature gulf waters. The waves were at
least 3-4 feet high so it made for fun swimming. I see
they have taken the red flag down so I'm sure the waves aren't
as great. I also went in the hotel's pool. My mom even
went into the pool!!!! SHOCKING!!!! Around noon we went for a
drive to Pensacola Beach, FL. It was such a pretty drive
over many large bridges! After driving around Florida aimlessly
we returned to Alabama and stopped at Moe's BBQ. Really
good food...pulled pork sandwich...YUM! Now we are
relaxing in the hotel room. The sisters are playing cards
(AGAIN!). I'm going to back out the beach for some more
swimming.
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June 3, 2011 @ 4:35 pm :: Gate A31 - Atlanta, GA
Gate A31 @ ATL
You maybe wondering why I'm writing from Gate A31 at Atlanta
airport. The short story is that I got into a fight with a
dump truck on I-85 in Montgomery, AL and I lost.
Thankfully everybody is OK. Thank GOD! Needless to
say the last 24 hours have probably been one of the toughest for
me. Mom's van has quite a bit of damage on the passenger
side but hopefully it isn't totaled. The people in
Montgomery are the best in the world. They made the whole
ordeal easy to deal with. The problem is we are 1050 miles
away from home and there is no way we can drive mom's car back
to WI. After the accident, I was able to drive the van to
a gas station that the police officer suggested we go to figure
out what to do next and that is were we sat for 4 hours.
It was so hot! It took us that long to get the plan.
The police officer that responded to our accident even came by
at like 8pm to check up on us. Isn't that amazing??
3 hours after the incident he came and checked on us! After tons
of phone calls, we eventually had the van towed to a hotel near
the airport. I got mom and Bev a flight home from
Montgomery for this morning. Fortunately, Grace was able
to go for free since Doug works for Delta. I just got off
the phone and they have landed safely in MSP and are on their
way home. After a sleepless night and a morning filled
with phone calls and tears, Mike and I came up with a plan that
thankfully got me out of Montgomery sooner than later. The
tow truck drive the night before, Benny, was a sweetheart.
We actually did what he suggested. So the van is currently
at the towing company's storage lot. Steve, a family
friend is driving down on Monday to pick it up. So by 1pm
today the car was towed to the storage lot and I was booking on
a flight home. I'm so happy! That was probably the
happiest moment in this whole ordeal...I was getting home
tonight. I'm still tearing up. I am just so thankfully
that everybody is ok. Anyways, I have a 3 hour layover in ATL. I'm not sure if I really want to do anything so I'm
just chilling in the seats and watching the planes take off. I
have an awesome view of the planes going up and I get to see the
landing gear go up. I love planes! The only bright side is
I get home from vacation a day early. I have to think of
something positive. Ok so before this whole ordeal we
drove to Tuskegee to visit Eric's Uncle Dennis and Aunt Beverly.
IT was such a nice time. They took us on campus and we had
lunch. We spent over 4 hours with them.
Overall the trip was awesome outside of this little bleap.
Hopefully in the future I will look upon this trip as a lot of
fun. I hope everybody can forgive me for the stress I have
put everybody through the last 24 hours. It will take me a
while to get over this.
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