<p>Michigan!!</p>
<p>nicollec…And…there are at least 10 current students who attend Bama from the KC metro area.</p>
<p>Guess we could start a ride board up here in the Fall, hopefully word of mouth would get more students/parents checking it. I know there are at least 15+ new freshmen and many more upperclassmen from the Chicago area.</p>
<p>I don’t know how I will feel about the driving. A car load of young adults driving 18 hours north, hmm. My hs friend’s D drives with a couple of girls back and forth, but I’m not sure. S will have a car at some point, but I just envision driving too fast, getting pulled over, etc Friends D missed the entire first week of spring semester. If you remember y’all were having a bad ice storm that was moving north, so she couldn’t leave for a week. Then again flying brings with it a host of other issues. This is the only down-side to Bama that I can see 
but that is balanced by the much warmer weather.</p>
<p>at this point we’re planning, like many others do, to drive down with DS and have him drop us off at the BHM airport for a one-way flight back to Chicago. We’ll visit the ride-sharing idea if/when it comes up, but not until he has a few trips under his belt.</p>
<p>Thanks, m2ck! I’m the student, and I’m so excited for this year!</p>
<p>Having driven some really long college tour drives (+20 Hours) and the Bama drive (several times) from the Northeast, I have to say that it can be a really difficult drive.
If the weather is cooperating and the traffic is okay, then the drive is okay -just very long, 18-20 hours (from where I am located) with pitstops. But if you run into bad weather (driving rain, hurricane like winds) then the visibility becomes really bad and along with the truckers not slowing down (easily 90 mph), the drive becomes dangerous. When the weather is like that, the drive is tiring, stressful and even longer. Sometimes for safeties’ sake, you just have to get off the road and wait it out at a rest stop.
We have had several of these bad weather drives and personally, I would not want my student driving that length of time or under those conditions.</p>
<p>Stressmuffin…</p>
<p>tell us a little bit about yourself!</p>
<p>Welcome Coolapple! Are you an incoming frosh? or a rising senior in high school?</p>
<p>A car load of young adults driving 18 hours north, hmm.</p>
<p>I agree…a “car load” could get too crazy…but maybe 2 or 3 in a car would be ok.</p>
<p>Parents are native Californians student is native San Diegan.</p>
<p>Welcome!</p>
<p>Is your child an incoming freshman or a rising senior?</p>
<p>Son is a freshman</p>
<p>Florida - Pensacola</p>
<p>D will be a freshman living in Ridgecrest South</p>
<p>Welcome!</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Bump…so new visitors can post!</p>
<p>Bump! </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Mods…can we get this thread pinned?</p>
<p>Birmingham, I have one daughter who is a sophomore majoring in Chemical and Biological Engineering with a Pre Med focus. She is also an Ambassador for the College of Engineering.
I have another daughter who is a sophomore in high school who is also considering UA.</p>
<p>FYI for those hailing from the western burbs of Chicagoland, there is a new FB site from one of the incoming frosh parents, TIDE Pride. Join in! RTR…</p>
<p>Further promotion of the TIDE PRIDE facebook group for the western burbs of Chicago. I think the group will become a helpful resource, making it easier to share rides and help each other out as we and our kids travel to and from UA. </p>
<p>All you have to do to join is go the the group site here: [Log</a> In | Facebook](<a href=“TIDE Pride Public Group | Facebook”>TIDE Pride Public Group | Facebook)
and click the “ask to join” button in the upper right hand side.</p>
<p>Bump…</p>