Arrival Day

Sunday, February 21, 2010

by Margaret Bau

The day was consumed by travel from
Wisconsin to South Texas. Some of us
started our journey on Saturday, traveling
by car to Milwaukee. Nine of the
ten met at the Milwaukee Airport on
Sunday morning. We flew almost three
hours from Milwaukee to Houston on
Continental Airlines (dodging a major
storm in the country’s midsection).
Diane Amera met us in Houston (she
had traveled separately from Washington
D.C.). After a short lay-over we flew for
about an hour from Houston to McAllen
along the US-Mexico border.
McAllen, TX
writer – Dan Knutzen
This is the day that some of the WRLP/
Leadership WI Alumni got together for
a traveling seminar.
Most seminar participants have to plan
carefully to leave their everyday lives to
be a part of something special. Different
groups from the program are represented
here, with some familiar faces mixed in
with some new ones. All have a common
experience of having been in WRLP
(except for Earl, Michelle’s guest).
At left: Earl, Margaret, Diane, Jane,
Carrie and Dan
South Texas is a long way from Wisconsin. Palm trees and sunshine greeted us outside the McAllen Airport. My
initial impressions of the area:
1. What a flat, flat land. Fields radiate everywhere from the roads and the commercial strip. The fields are crisscrossed
by irrigation canals.
2. Everyone we meet seems to be completely fluent in English and Spanish without a second language accent in
either tongue, which is usually a sign that people have been speaking both languages since early childhood.
I look forward to our week together.