Part 4 of 4... the conclusion.
Well I am finally gonna finish this thing.
Friday, February 27th, 2004:
Friday was a light work day. Being the last full day in Meridian we had an opportunity to do somet touristy things. We finished up as much of the painting as we could. We finished all the drywalling. We got a lot done. I spent the day painting, mudding, and cleaning up tape from around the place. After the light work in the morning we headed to the office for lunch.
Lunch was the best ever! We had Captain D's Seafood. We each got a Fish sandwich and fries. It was really really good. After lunch Fonda gave each of us a pin in thanks for the work we had done. The choices were a paintbrush and a hammer. I chose the hammer and immediately placed it on my corduroy hat. Just after that was "passing the hammer." We each had a turn with the hammer. When we had we were supposed to talk about the expectations for the trip and how we felt about the whole experience. It was a very good reflection on the week's work.
After lying around and resting, we left for Merrehope which is a historical home in Meridian. It is one of the few if not the only antebellum structure left in Meridian. Meridian was a stop on Sherman's march which involved lots of destruction. Fonda gaves a great tour of the house and description of hits history. There was alot of history in that house and alot of neat stuff. And supposedly it is haunted. We looked at some pictures hich had "ghosts" in them. I'm not big on ghost stories myself, but it is interesting nonetheless.
After Merrehope we loaded up in the vans after saying some good byes to Fonda. She had to go to a meeting. Drew helped us to arrive at our destination... not really. He followed us. Drew was an interesting fellow to say the least. Our destination was the historic Denzel Carousel in Meridian. It was pretty cool. The carousel was made in about 1896 and was used in the 1904 world's fair or something. At some point Meridian Mississippi bought it and it has been there ever since. The girraffes, reindeer, horses, lions and other beasts were all beautifully detailed. The horse tails were real horsetails... kinda gross, but cool at the same time. We had a fine time riding it. I rode a reindeer and one of those benches that are always on the carousels. It had one of those old music things that has the organ and the bass drum and bells and snare drum in one unit, but it was not operational. That was kind of disappointing, but the blaring CD of carousel music was sweet sounding anyhow.
After we had our fill of carousels we decided to go back to the church and just hang out outside on the beautiful sunny day- the first sunny day we had had all week. Most of the girls took their airmattress outside to the blacktop parking lot and napped in the sun. Andrew, Sarah, Jon and I however threw the frisbee around and had a lot of fun. We had a few near losses of the frisbee, but it was recovered each time thankfully. When we got bored of co-operative frisbee we played keep-away which got kind of rough. When we got sick of that we jsut sat around and had some laughs. I grabbed Colleen's camera since she was sleeping. I posed for a bunch of silly pictures and then put the camera back. WE all laughed very hard.
Later in the evening we went to the Salad Factory which is... you guessed it... a salad bar! They had an extensive salad bar, a baked potato bar, and a soup bar. I thought I had made one of the largest salads I had ever seen, but Jon managed to make one about twice as big. The soups were good..cream of broccoli and tortilla soup... (that's two seperate soups of course) Their cornbreadsticks however were most gross. I sat with Cait, Smelly, and Steph, and we talked and had good times. After we finished at the salad factory we all headed to the mall. We split up and of course i was with Jon.
Jon and I bought some things at Footlocker. He bought a very nice pair of sandals for 2 dollars. TWO dollars! I got 3 t-shirts for 5 dollars. We got some good deals... or so we thought. When Jon got home (as in Ann Arbor) he noticed that he had TWO LEFT sandals! no wonder they were so cheap! ;) As far as I can tell my shirts have nothing wrong with them. We went to the music store and i saw something incredible. A sloan CD! SLOAN! In Mississippi! Isn't that rediculous! It was "Between the Bridges" which is a great album. For those of you who don't know Sloan is a Canadian band whose only American recognition lies in Detroit and Buffalo. Since I already own the disc I did not buy it. I then headed over to the Shiatsu massage chairs and was not impressed with them. I guess it was okay for the dollar I spent, but it wasn't a great massage. For me it definately did not live up to all the girls' raves about it...
After the final trek to Bonita Falls mall we went back to the church for a reflection and packing. The final reflection involved some bible reading. We then filled out affirmations or "warm and fuzzies" for everyone on cards. While we did that we listened to a CD which included one of the best songs ever: "Thank you for Being a Friend" by Andrew Goldman. You may know it as the theme from Golden Girls. Man that song is great. In seventh grade we had to sing it to the eighth graders. So lame, but so awesome. Sarah Braided my hair after that... I then showered and successfully kept the braids intact. They lasted throughout most of Saturday as well. Packing happened then we tried to get to sleep. Eventually we did.
Saturday February 28th, 2004:
We all planned on leaving around 6 or so. We all woke up around 7am. oops. We rushed to get ready. I couldn't find my wallet, but someone had it, for i ahd left it in the bathroom friday night. WE were finally on the road by 7:30am CST. As we head down the highway i started coughing as I had been all week. I suddenly had a tremendous amount of mucus in my mouth and no obvious way of disposing of it. Being desperate i opened the window and let loose the phlegm. The combination of the wind and the 90mph van led the loogy to stick to the window behind me. It was on there for 2 hours and dired up by the time we stoipped for gas at about 9. It was gross, but i was strangely proud.
I then got coffee and a donut (for only 99cents!) and got behind the steering wheel. I did alot of driving that saturday. I like driving. I drove for a while and then we stopped at a Wendy's for lunch. The majority of the group had Wendy's, but Colleen, Jon, and I ran across the busy 5 lane street to get Captain D's. I got a fish sandwich, fries, and a Mr. Pibb. It was a yummy yummy lunch. Colleen got two yummy lunches but gave me hush puppies and Stephanie green beans. Jon had a heary lunch as well. When our tummies were satisfied and our bladders emptied we got back on the road. We stopped a few hours later at a gas station. It had the grossest bathroom ever. Yuck.
At some point (in tennessee?) we crossed back into Eastern Standard Time and we had to set our clocks forward one hour. In the car there was much singing and fun. We listened to Hey Ya twice in a row and a danced like no one was watching, except everyone was watching... even the folks in the other van. Multiple times on the ride home we passed the same car. It was some sort of SUV with a MSU spare tire cover. It was weird passing her all the time.
We stopped at a McDonald's in Ohio to use the restroom. Everyone decided Smelly had been driving too much so she moved into the Maroon (my) van and Suzanne went to drive that one. I was put in the lead as the driver of the Maroon van. I drove in circles in the parking lot and threw Suzanne off. She got frustrated and exited the parking lot somewhere. I exited it at a different spot. WE got on the highway and I finally took the lead. I drove the rest of the way home, though i was not always in the lead. At some points Suzanne unexpectedly took the lead. I regained it when i flashed our headlights to some techno song. She though i was signalling her. I wasn't... I was just being stupid for the sake of fun.
Throughout most of Michigan I had to go to the bathroom, but I sure as heck wasn't going to stop. We decided to get dinner at Pizza House when we got back to Ann Arbor. We did as such and i think everyone was happy about the decision. We had a deepdish cheese pizza (yum), a regular pepperoni (eh its okay) and a green pepper, onion, and broccolli pizza (soooooo good!). We all ate heartily and had many laughs, but then unfortunately had to take everyone home and go back into our normal lives.
We made it back to Ann Arbor in just under 13 hours. That is pretty impressive considering that we had 12 people. I was impressed. We beat mapquest by virtue of making so few stops. I began unpacking and then i had to reenter into life as a student at the University of Michigan.
So to recap... I went to Meridian, Mississippi with some friends and some acquaintances and came back with 11 friends and an understanding of a different culture within America. I highly reccomend Alternative Spring Break to anyone. It was so fun... so informative. It also feels great to help people. Not to put anyone else's trips down, but I would take a hammer in my hand over a piña colada beachside anyday. Oh yeah and after all that hard work, a refreshing can of Grape Nehi is wonderful. Man, that stuff is good.
The end
Alternative Spring Break 2004, Meridan, Mississippi.
Liz, Sarah, Lisa, Michelle, Melissa, Stephanie, Colleen, Jon, Suzanne, Andrea, Cait... I love you guys.
-Andrew