9/11 for me

I meant to talk about this in my last blog, but you know how it goes! I want to tell you where I was on 9/11 seven years ago.
My husband and I, married 2 years at this time, decided to take an anniversary vacation. We went to Cozumel, Mexico for 3 days. We flew from St. Louis to Cancun, then from there we had to hop on a small passenger plane to get to Cozumel. This was around the time alot of people had crashed in the small planes and died. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out! When we landed in Cancun, my husband and I sighed with relief having made it on the little plane. As we were walking the hallway/tunnel, a couple of airport employees said "Your pentagon got bombed!". Mind you, this was not said with any concern, but with laughter. Not knowing what they were talking about, the horrific event started as we walked out of our gate into the airport(lobby?). Hundreds and hundreds of people were crowded around one 13" tv wacthing the first plane hit the first the Twin Tower over, and over again. It was so quiet, you could acctually hear a pin drop. The sorrow and mourning came all at once in a flood. Most of the people there were flying home to New York. I remember one girl crying franticly, "My dad works in the Trade Center!" It was gut wrenching to hear her anguish. Here I was worried about my children, my girl was 3 and my boy was 3 months old at the time, and these people had probably lost family, friends, and coworkers. All flights were canceled and the airport shutdown. I mean literally. They shut the lights down. All of us, hundreds of people were in the dark. It was kind of surreal. We were in the dark about the terrorist attack and in the dark at the airport. We were stuck in Cancun. Nobody had any money to get a hotel-we were all on our way home from spending all of our money during our vacations. The Mexican Embassy did do all of us a favor, by putting us up in an all inclusive hotel at no charge for 2 days and gave us half price for the remainder of the time. The first thing we did when we got to the hotel was watch the news coverage while calling collect to talk to our kids. Family helped out a great deal during that time. That night, my husband and I went on this bar-hopping tour. You are probably thinking, how can they do that after these events?! Easy-we wanted to forget! I did feel bad at first, but at the end of the night, we were on the top deck of a double decker bus, passing around a bottle of tequila chanting "USA, USA, USA,.." with our fellow Americans down the streets of Cancun! I almost burst with the pride that welled up inside me (and I assume everyone else felt the same)! It was a chant to let everyone know that the USA is ours and we won't stand for this vicious attack! After the 5th day, we were allowed to fly home. On the flight were a couple of middle-eastern men and they were being watched very closely. There are things I will never know. Did the employees of the airport really think this was a funny situation? I don't know. Did that girls dad die that day? I don't know. I do know that I will ALWAYS support our country by supporting our troops! It is sad that we lose some of our troops, but I accept it knowing they are fighting for their country. I don't accept it when innocent people die like on the day of September 11, 2001.