As some of you may know, I was born and raised in the swampland of Louisiana, along Bayou Lafourche. I'm surrounded by centuries old sugar plantations. I love visiting the Frech Quarter in downtown New Orleans. I used to live right across the river from it, in fact. There's something about this area of the country you just can't find anywhere else. The music, the food, the architecture, the history, the people... it's a very rich place to live.

Almost everybody has heard about the massive hurricane season we had down here a few years back. I wont go into detail about it, though if you have questions about what really happened (as opposed to what you heard on the news) I can tell you, because I was there, I saw it with my own two eyes.

But the thing I'll remember the most about it was driving across the country in the middle of the night, passing through the huge rain bands on the edge of the storm. We wound up with some friends in Memphis, Tennesse. After 2 days of watching what happened to the city, my dad decided to attempt to go back down to get back into the state. He didn't even make it through Mississippi and had to turn back because there were no gas stations with electricity below Jackson. The next day, we decided to figure out a way to make it back down, one way or the other.

We got out a phone book and started calling every performance car shop in Memphis, looking for fuel cells or drums. We eventually found someone that had empty 15 gallon drums, and they gave us four of them. We picked up a generator, bought about $250 worth of gas, and headed for home.

Driving back into Louisiana was an eerie experience... it was night, and there were absolutely no lights to be seen for hundreds of miles. We passed several trucks carrying supplies, most had 5 gallon gas cans stashed somewhere in their cargo. We chuckled, knowing there was no gas to be had, possibly for days or even a week or more depending on where you lived.

Eventually, we made it back home, though the roads were covered with trees (not branches... entire trees) and we had to take several detours. At one point we were stopped by National Guard, and had to re-route to hit back roads. We eventually got there, set up the generator, and spent the next week watching the news around the rest of the area.

I'll always remember the grand adventure we had... thankfully everything turned out okay for us, but it was still scary and wild. Driving cross-country at night in heavy rain, with 4 sleeping kids in the back of the van. Rushing to fill the vehicles with a siphon while cars flew by us in the dark. It was a life-changing experience for me.