It's like a really loud grinding sound. Almost like a giant rock tumbler. That's not a good sign, is it?

So I'm having some car trouble, just in time for the busiest weekend since I moved here. I'll get to the car stuff in a moment, because I am really more interested in talking about all the exciting things going on!

First up is Bay Bash, our fall fundraiser which took place last night. It was a fantastic evening, lots of fun, and pretty successful I think! We here at the office are still recovering from late nights and weeks of stressful planning. We've had sort of a slow start, with people trickling into the office a few at a time, arms laden with stacks of burlap, bags of driftwood, and unclaimed silent auction items. (I am actually one of the guilty parties who left without claiming the framed photographs I won! Pictures to follow!)

Some of us had a later night than others. I'm not actually sure how late anyone else was out, but I didn't get in until about 1:30am last night. My mom got in on a late flight into Gulfport, MS, (an hour west of Mobile) so, accompanied by my lovely assistant Koko, I went out to get her. However, I was late leaving the fundraiser because, even with permission, I felt guilty leaving early, so we didn't really get onto the highway until about 10ish. While driving, Koko and I alternated between trying to distract ourselves from the strange sound the car was making and trying to diagnose it. The car has been making this weird sound for a while, about 3ish weeks at this point. I for sure noticed it on October 22nd. At first I likened it to sounding as though someone had installed a large rock tumbler in my trunk. Now, I am not a car person, I know hardly anything about them or their maintenance, but I could tell that something was off about that, although I couldn't begin to guess what might be wrong. I knew that the brakes were fine and I was quite certain that it wasn't the muffler. Koko noticed it the other day while we were driving to the Dixie, definitively proving that I am not paranoid and that there is actually something wrong!

So on top of the other car problem I've been having (for those of you who haven't heard, my trust in the Accord was recently shattered when I spent a night running down to the parking lot every fifteen minutes to disengage a car alarm which kept activating itself for no apparent or logical reason. I finally had to have roadside assistance come to my apartment to get it all unhooked so that I--and my 200 neighbors--could sleep in peace.) I now have this to deal with. I had warned my dad about the weird noise and alerted my mom to it once we found her at the airport. As soon as we pulled away from the curb she confirmed, once and for all, that there is something seriously wrong. She was reluctant to get back on the highway, but as it was already 11:30 and we had no map, we opted to take the highway, but just go really slow. So we rumbled along at 50mph on I-10E for about an hour and a half until we got back to my apartment building. Koko was a real trooper and after keeping me company and calm on the drive out, took a well-deserved nap in the back seat. The symptoms were also a lot more noticeable in the back seat, consisting of the seat vibrating like a cell phone. Seriously, if you have any idea what's going on, please tell me.

We are in the process of finding a reliable place to take the car in to get looked at, because, go figure, I don't have a car place in Alabama. We're in a time crunch too because my mom was supposed to take the car this morning to drive to Pensacola to meet up with the rest of my extended family. What are a bunch of midwesterners doing in Pensacola in the middle of October? you may ask. We are gathering for my cousin Jonathan's wedding! I am super excited, not only because he's getting married, but also because I get to see some of my favorite family members! G-money is driving into Mobile tonight and we will join the rest of the fam in Florida tomorrow morning.

I think this is a good time to point out that every time G-dawg has come to visit me, we have ended up in Florida. I just think that's funny. I mean, the Florida state line is less than an hour away, which makes it less impressive, but still. :)

So that's all I've got for now! I am in a really good mood, despite the obnoxious car situation. And even though my mom and I are both exhausted, it was so so good to see her last night and show her around my little apartment now that I'm more settled into it. More pictures to follow, of everything (aside from the drive to and from the airport, which I never want to remember, because it was awful), but here are a few that I have so far!

More to come!
Love,
Boo

The back of the venue, Five Rivers.

The view from the upper deck, looking out over the water.

The outdoor tables on the deck.

Wow! For real?? How did I not know that?

That is going to be your reaction to the following list of facts I have compiled about the Gulf Coast. Let me preface this list by saying that yesterday, after a year of meetings and public listening sessions, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force released its report! This is basically a 100-page plan for long-term ecosystem and community restoration in the 5 Gulf Coast states. So far I have only gotten a few pages into it, but they have all been super interesting pages! There is a section which details why the Gulf Coast is so important, and there are some really really interesting facts in it!

So, without further ado, here are some cool things you might not have known about the 5 coastal states that I think you should know :)

Did you know...

• In Alabama "in 2009, commercial fishing trips landed 27.8 million pounds of seafood worth over $37 million. Commercial fishing contributes $391 million and over 8,750 jobs to the state’s economy annually."
• "In 2010 tourism was responsible for welcoming more than 82.3 million visitors to Florida, who spent more than $62.7 billion, generating 22 percent of the state’s sales tax revenue and employing nearly 1 million Floridians."
• "More than five million ducks (20 percent of the continental population) winter in Louisiana each year. During the peak spring migration season, nearly 25 million birds arrive in coastal Louisiana each day."
• "Today, more than 30 states depend on coastal Louisiana’s navigation channels for imports and exports. Louisiana’s ports account for 18 percent of all waterborne commerce in the nation. Five of the 15 largest ports in the United States are in Louisiana. The state’s ports handle an estimated 60 percent of grain exports from Midwestern farmers and are a top importer of steel, coffee, rubber, timber and containerized cargo."
• Louisiana "produces up to 90 percent of the nation’s outer continental shelf oil and natural gas. Louisiana is the top producer of oil and natural gas in the nation (including outer continental shelf oil and gas)."
• "Nearly 25 percent of the commercial fish and shellfish in the United States are harvested in Louisiana’s waters. Louisiana is the nation’s top producer of shrimp, oysters, crawfish and blue crabs." AND "Nearly 90 percent of species in the Gulf of Mexico and 98 percent of commercial fish and shellfish depend on Louisiana’s coastal wetlands."
• Pascagoula, Mississippi, "is the home of the largest military shipbuilder in the United States, and the largest private employer in the state, providing approximately 11,000 jobs for residents of the northern Gulf region."
• Also in Mississippi, "NASA’s Stennis Space Center is home to more than 30 federal, state, academic and private organizations and numerous technology-based companies. The center’s staff includes approximately 2,000 oceanographers, scientists and support staff with a unique capability to study the Gulf Coast from space and in the field."
• "Eighty-two percent of shrimp in the United States come from the Gulf States, with Texas supplying 89.7 million pounds per year. The annual oyster harvest is approximately 5.7 million pounds of meat worth over $19 million."

Okay, so maybe that was more of a textbook-style blog post than I intended, but I still think it is super interesting to realize that so many resources come from this area! Consider this: "The five U.S. Gulf Coast states, if considered an individual country, would rank 7th in global gross domestic product." That is just crazy!!

Oh by the way, all these quotes are taken directly from the report, which, if you are interested, can be found here!

Also, maybe a picture will help liven this post up.

Blue crabs!!