sigh, my basement flooded, again, 2 feet of water (I'm north of boston, right near Saugus/rt 1). We flooded a couple years ago (first delay in new kitchen) and paid to have a very fancy interior drain system put in by Basement Technologies. Fast forward to Mother's day, and the dang pump was "faulty" and never activated. 2 feet of water. Ruined water heater, furnace, vinyl records!! :( and some furniture we were storing during construction. I am just now cleaned up enough to figure out if I get anything more than the $1000 (already got the pump replaced) they promise. It cost me $1000 to get a new water heater, which was only 2 yrs old from the last flood! More money which means more delays re-starting my kitchen. I really miss my apartment! But I did not have to leave my home or have sewage, many folks were/are a lot worse off. A brand new house on a pond on my street is for sale in the mid $900s, and instead of on the pond it became IN the pond...

Hi, What fun for her! Is it EFTours by chance? My son is taking a trip with them in June. I would be surprised if the tour does not include group meals? They usually do. I have no insight about cash needs. We went 7 or 8 years ago, and arranged a lot of the tours and such thru our hotel, the Royal Palms in Santa Cruz. I am sure the tour operator has done this many times so can give good advice. Generally, the exchange rate for cash USD will be far more favorable to the published rate, so cash is the way to go, but it has its attendant risks of course. We did not take any vaccines. You may want to consider getting the following from your Dr., just in case: Cipro, for intestinal distress, SCOP patches, for seasickness, and Diamox, for altitude sickness. I just used the Scop patches on a trip and they were so helpful. Made me a tad drowsy but totally solved motion sickness for me. We took Diamox in advance of our arrival in high altitude, and had mixed results. My one daughter seemed to get ill from it (though I can't be sure), so we all stopped taking it and were fine. But I know another family who could not have gotten thru their vacation without it. It felt odd to travel with 15 prescriptions (3 types for all 5 of us), but you don't want to have a problem on vacation in a lesser developed country ... I am sure she will have a blasT!

Thanks for your well wishes all. I took a nap this afternoon. We did have a hard rain around noon and was very dark out. It doesn't flood, at least never has where we live. Yes the rivers and creeks rise but no problems up this way at least for now. Fields get water in them and drown the crops at times. Sue in Central Indiana

Hi Terri, I have ordered from both Palatine and Hortico many times. While they recommend that you use 3 day shipping if you live in TX or CA, they don't insist on it. The cost for shipping 3 to 9 roses is $32.95. Whenever I order roses from Canada, I wait until I can find 9 that I want before I order, in order to keep the shipping cost per rose as low as possible. I realize that not everyone can do that, but if you can, then the cost is $32.95/9 = $3.66 per rose, which is not bad. Palatine packs their roses really well in a thick black plastic bag with moistened packing material around the roots. I have them shipped in November when it is cool. It takes around 6-8 days to get here and they always arrive in excellent shape. They do have an excellent selection and the quality of the roses is quite good. Their roses are only in the field for a single summer: they are budded/grafted in September, planted in the field and harvested the following November in the following year. Roses produced in CA and other rose-growing areas of the US usually spend 2 summers in the field before harvest. The Canadian roses typically have larger root systems (Rosa multiflora rootstock) than US grown roses (Dr. Huey rootstock), with some roots exceeding 18 inches in length. The caliper of the canes of the Canadian roses is thinner, but the caliper of the new canes on the Canadian roses catches up quickly. Since the rootstock of the Canadian roses is grown from seed, you have a much lower chance of getting a virused rose. Overall, the Canadian roses do as the grafted and own-root roses produced in the USA, in my garden. It sometimes seems a few of my Canadian roses are even more vigorous than the other roses: I had a grafted 'Radio Times' rose from Canada, a David Austin shrub, that threw a 15 foot cane!