December 26, 2008

It's a little after 9PM. We made it. We are in both houses in Bay St. Louis and a contingent is on the way to pick up food for breakfast at the local Walmart. We were up at 3:45AM and on the road just before 5AM. We picked up Meggie who also lives in Boulder Creek. At the airport, the lines were long but all 20 of us made it through in time. Brittany had checked us in online so we would all be in the first boarding group on Southwest. The first leg of our flight was from San Jose to Denver and the flight crew was hilarious. They inserted things into the regular spiel such as: "Federal Law prohibits disabling smoke detectors and web cams in the restrooms." When we took off and did the steep ascent, they had a race that they called over the PA featuring the blue bag of peanuts and the red bag of crackers--racing to see which got to the back of the plane first along the floor.
They were very professional when the situation warranted due to a medical emergency. They asked for a doctor and found one and then when we landed in Denver we waited for the paramedics to take the girl off the plane. They were very calm and administered oxygen, etc.
They switched back to humor as we had a bumpy approach for the landing with a song over the PA that warned us not to throw up and had everyone laughing.
The second leg to New Orleans was much less entertaining although they did thank us over the PA and the 2 other groups that were also heading to do disaster relief work. When we arrived, Brittany, Gail, Bill, and Craig went to pick up our 4 reserved vans at Alamo. I was in charge of seeing that the remaining 16 collected all the luggage and stayed together while we waited. We have decided that this part of the trip always teaches us patience. There were no vans and no cars either!! When they called me to tell me the situation, Sandy and I headed to the car rental counters---no vans, cars--at all! The guy at Hertz gave me the number for "Nifty Car Rentals" but they only had one car. Evidently due to the Sugar Bowl all cars from all agencies were gone. No one was helpful--either at their 800 numbers or in person. After AVIS told me they had nothing, Craig found a 12 passenger van there and then they found a second one! It limits our flexibility but it sure was better than the sit in we were planning at Alamo! :)
We start at 7:30AM tomorrow as we'll head into Pearlington to get our work assignments for the day. We could have done without the stress, drama, etc. but we're here safe and sound and ready to work which is what counts!