story3398.xml

story3398.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

The morning of September 11, 2001, my husband, my son, and myself were on a day trip to the gulfarium in Florida. We got up ate breakfast and left out without ever turning on a TV or radio. We toured the Gulfarium and had a sparkling adventure with our 9 year old son, who had never seen live ocean animal shows. At the end of the tour, we exited the park into their souviner shop. As we were enjoying shopping around, we kept hearing over their radio system reporters talking in strained voices. My husband told me, "Lisa something bad has to have happened". I walked over to the check out counter and asked a clerk, "has something unusual happened to be covered so heavily on the radio station"? She looked at me as if I were from mars! She said, "lady don't you know the world trade center is gone! It's been hit by 2 planes! The pentagon has been hit too!" I felt my blood run cold in my veins. How could this have happened?!?! Our little family gathered our belongings and headed back to our beach condo in Gulf Shores. My husband and I were devistated. We held our son and viewed on TV the horrifing coverage. We were ready to go home. It was no longer fun to be on vacation.